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Common SAS Formats

Category	Informat	Description	Width Range	Default Width
Character	$w.	Write character data; do not trim leading blanks.	1 - 32,767	Variable Length
	$HEXw.	Write character data in hex; specify width as twice the number of characters.	1 - 32,767	4
Numeric	w.d	Write standard numeric data.	1 - 32	None
	COMMAw.d	Write numeric data with embedded commas every three digits.	2 - 32	6
	DOLLARw.d	Write numeric data with embedded commas and dollar signs.	1 - 32	6
	Ew.	Write numeric data in scientific notation.	7 - 32	12
	BESTw.	SAS chooses best format. Default for numeric data.	7 - 32	6
Date	DATEw.	Write date as ddmmmyy or ddmmmyyyy.	5 - 9	7
	DATETIMEw.d.	Write date and time as ddmmmyy:hh:mm:ss.ss.	7 - 40	16
	DAYw.	Write day of month.	2 - 32	2
	DDMMYYw.	Write date as dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy.	2 - 10	8
	MMDDYYw.	Write date as dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy.	2 - 10	8
	TIMEw.d	Write time as hh:mm:ss.ss.	2 - 20	8
	WEEKDATEw.	Write date as day-of-week, month-name dd, yy or dd, yyyy.	3 - 37	29
	WORDDATEw.	Write date as month-name dd, yy or dd, yyyy.	3 - 32	18
	JULIANw.	Write date value as a SAS Julian date: yyddd or yyyydddd	5 - 7	5



• A SAS date is specified as the number of days since January 1, 1960. Dates before this are negative.
   
• SAS can accurately calculate the day of the week back to September 1752 when the Gregorian calendar was adopted.
   
• SAS date calculations are accurate into the future until 19,900.
   
• A SAS time value is the number of seconds since midnight, January 1, 1960.
• NB: A SAS Julian date is different than the usual definition of a Julian date, which is the number of days and fraction since January 1, BC 4713 using the Julian calendar. This was November 24, BC 4714 using the Gregorian calendar.