Informats by Category

There are eight categories of informats in SAS:

Category	Description
BIDI text handling	instructs SAS to read bidirectional data values from data variables
Character	instructs SAS to read character data values into character variables.
Column Binary	instructs SAS to read data stored in column-binary or multipunched form into character and numeric variables.
DBCS	instructs SAS to handle various Asian languages.
Date and Time	instructs SAS to read data values into variables that represent dates, times, and datetimes.
Hebrew text handling	instructs SAS to read Hebrew data from data variables
Numeric	instructs SAS to read numeric data values into numeric variables.
User -Defined	instructs SAS to read data values by using an informat that is created with an INVALUE statement in PROC FORMAT.

For information on reading column-binary data, see SAS Language Reference: Concepts . For information on creating user-defined informats, see the FORMAT procedure in the Base SAS Procedures Guide .

The following table provides brief descriptions of the SAS informats. For more detailed descriptions, see the dictionary entry for each informat.

Table 5.3: Categories and Descriptions of Informats

Category	Informats	Description
BIDI text handling	'$LOGVS w . Informat' on page 954	Reads a character string that is in left-to-right logical order and then converts the character string to visual order
	'$LOGVSR w . Informat' on page 954	Reads a character string that is in right-to-left logical order and then converts the character string to visual order
	'$VSLOG w . Informat' on page 965	Reads a character string that is in visual order and then converts the character string to left-to-right logical order
	'$VSLOGR w . Informat' on page 965	Reads a character string that is in visual order and then converts the character string to right-to-left logical order
Character	'$ASCII w . Informat' on page 946	Converts ASCII character data to native format
	'$BINARY w . Informat' on page 947	Converts binary data to character data
	'$CHAR w . Informat' on page 949	Reads character data with blanks
	'$CHARZB w . Informat' on page 951	Converts binary 0s to blanks
	'$EBCDIC w . Informat' on page 952	Converts EBCDIC character data to native format
	'$HEX w . Informat' on page 953	Converts hexadecimal data to character data
	'$OCTAL w . Informat' on page 955	Converts octal data to character data
	'$PHEX w . Informat' on page 956	Converts packed hexadecimal data to character data
	'$QUOTE w . Informat' on page 957	Removes matching quotation marks from character data
	'$REVERJ w . Informat' on page 958	Reads character data from right to left and preserves blanks
	'$REVERS w . Informat' on page 958	Reads character data from right to left and left, and then left aligns the text
	'$UCS2B w . Informat' on page 958	Reads a character string that is encoded in big-endian, 16-bit, universal character set code in 2 octets (UCS2), Unicode encoding, and then convertst he character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UCS2BE w . Informat' on page 958	Reads a character string that is in the encoding of the current SAS session and then converts the character string to big-endian, 16-bit, universal character set code in 2 octets (UCS2), Unicode encoding
	'$UCS2L w . Informat' on page 958	Reads a character string that is encoded in little-endian, 16-bit, universal character set code in 2 octets (UCS2), Unicode encoding, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UCS2LE w . Informat' on page 959	Reads a character string that is in the encoding of the current SAS session and then converts the character string to little-endian, 16-bit, universal character set code in 2 octets (UCS2), Unicode encoding
	'$UCS2X w . Informat' on page 959	Reads a character string that is encoded in 16-bit, universal character set code in 2 octets (UCS2), Unicode encoding, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UCS2XE w . Informat' on page 959	Reads a character string that is in the encoding of the current SAS session and then converts the character string to 16-bit, universal character set code in 2 octets (UCS2), Unicode encoding
	'$UCS4B w . Informat' on page 959	Reads a character string that is encoded in big-endian, 32-bit, universal character set code in 4 octets (UCS4), Unicode encoding, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UCS4L w . d Informat' on page 960	Reads a character string that is encoded in little-endian, 32-bit, universal character set code in 4 octets (UCS4), Unicode encoding, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UCS4X w . Informat' on page 960	Reads a character string that is encoded in 32-bit, universal character set code in 4 octets (UCS4), Unicode encoding, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UCS4XE w . Informat' on page 960	Reads a character string that is in the encoding of the current SAS session and then converts the character string to 32-bit, universal character set code in 4 octets (UCS4), Unicode encoding
	'$UESC w . Informat' on page 960	Reads a character string that is encoded in Unicode escape (UESC) representation, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UESCE w . Informat' on page 961	Reads a character string that is in the encoding of the current SAS session, and then converts the character string to Unicode escape (UESC)
	'$UNCR w . Informat' on page 961	Reads the numeric character representation (NCR) character string, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UNCRE w . Informat' on page 961	Reads a character string in the encoding of the current SAS session, and then converts the character string to session-encoded NCR (numeric character representation)
	'$UPAREN w . Informat' on page 961	Reads a character string that is encoded in UPAREN (Unicode parenthesis) representation, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$UPARENE w . Informat' on page 961	Reads a character string that is encoded in the current SAS session, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the Unicode parenthesis (UPAREN) representation
	'$UPARENP w . Informat' on page 962	Reads a character string that is encoded in Unicode parenthesis (UPAREN) representation, and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session with national characters remaining in the encoding of the UPAREN representation
	'$UPCASE w . Informat' on page 962	Converts character data to uppercase
	'$UTF8X w . Informat' on page 963	Reads a character string that is encoded in Unicode transformation format (UTF-8), and then converts the character string to the encoding of the current SAS session
	'$VARYING w . Informat' on page 963	Reads character data of varying length
	'$ w . Informat' on page 965	Reads standard character data
Column Binary	'$CB w . Informat' on page 948	Reads standard character data from column-binary files
	'CB w . d Informat' on page 974	Reads standard numeric values from column-binary files
	'PUNCH. d Informat' on page 1010	Reads whether a row of column-binary data is punched
	'ROW w . d Informat' on page 1016	Reads a column-binary field down a card column
DBCS	'$KANJI w . Informat' on page 954	Removes shift code data from DBCS data
	'$KANJIX w . Informat' on page 954	Adds shift code data to DBCS data
Date and Time	'ANYDTDTE w . Informat' on page 966	Reads and extracts date values from DATE, DATETIME, DDMMYY, JULIAN, MMDDYY, MONYY, TIME, YYMMDD, or YYQ informat values
	'ANYDTDTM w . Informat' on page 968	Reads and extracts datetime values from DATE, DATETIME, DDMMYY, JULIAN, MMDDYY, MONYY, TIME, YYMMDD, or YYQ informat values
	'ANYDTTME w . Informat' on page 969	Reads and extracts time values from DATE, DATETIME, DDMMYY, JULIAN, MMDDYY, MONYY, TIME, YYMMDD, or YYQ informat values
	'DATE w . Informat' on page 977	Reads date values in the form ddmmmyy or ddmmmyyyy
	'DATETIME w . Informat' on page 978	Reads datetime values in the form ddmmmyy hh:mm:ss.ss or ddmmmyyyy hh:mm:ss.ss
	'DDMMYY w . Informat' on page 980	Reads date values in the form ddmmyy or ddmmyyyy
	'EURDFDE w . Informat' on page 982	Reads international date values
	'EURDFDT w . Informat' on page 982	Reads international datetime values in the form ddmmmyy hh:mm:ss.ss or ddmmmyyyy hh:mm:ss.ss
	'EURDFMY w . Informat' on page 983	Reads month and year date values in the form mmmyy or mmmyyyy
	'JDATEYMD w . Informat' on page 989	Reads Japanese Kanji date values in the format yymmmdd or yyyymmmdd
	'JNENGO w . Informat' on page 990	Reads Japanese Kanji date values in the form yymmdd
	'JULIAN w . Informat' on page 990	Reads Julian dates in the form yyddd or yyyyddd
	'MINGUO w . Informat' on page 991	Reads dates in Taiwanese form
	'MMDDYY w . Informat' on page 991	Reads date values in the form mmddyy or mmddyyyy
	'MONYY w . Informat' on page 993	Reads month and year date values in the form mmmyy or mmmyyyy
	'MSEC w . Informat' on page 994	Reads TIME MIC values
	'NENGO w . Informat' on page 995	Reads Japanese date values in the form eyymmdd
	'NLDATE w. Informat' on page 996	Reads the date value in the specified locale and then converts the date value to the local SAS date value
	'NLDATM w . Informat' on page 996	Reads the datetime value of the specified locale, and then converts the datetime value to the local SAS datetime value
	'NLTIMAP w. Informat' on page 997	Reads the time value and uses a.m. and p.m. in the specified locale, and then converts the time value to the local SAS-time value
	'NLTIME w. Informat' on page 998	Reads the time value in the specified locale and then converts the time value to the local SAS time value
	'PDJULG w . Informat' on page 1001	Reads packed Julian date values in the hexadecimal form yyyyddd F for IBM
	'PDJULI w . Informat' on page 1003	Reads packed Julian dates in the hexadecimal format ccyyddd F for IBM
	'PDTIME w . Informat' on page 1004	Reads packed decimal time of SMF and RMF records
	'RMFDUR w . Informat' on page 1013	Reads duration intervals of RMF records
	'RMFSTAMP w . Informat' on page 1014	Reads time and date fields of RMF records
	'SHRSTAMP w . Informat' on page 1032	Reads date and time values of SHR records
	'SMFSTAMP w . Informat' on page 1033	Reads time and date values of SMF records
	'STIMER w . Informat' on page 1034	Reads time values and determines whether the values are hours, minutes, or seconds; reads the output of the STIMER system option
	'TIME w . Informat' on page 1035	Reads hours, minutes, and seconds in the form hh:mm:ss.ss
	'TODSTAMP w . Informat' on page 1037	Reads an eight-byte time-of-day stamp
	'TU w . Informat' on page 1038	Reads timer units
	'WEEKU w . Informat' on page 1041	Reads the format of the number-of-week value within the year and returns a SAS date value by using the U algorithm
	'WEEKV w . Informat' on page 1041	Reads the format of the number-of-week value within the year and returns a SAS date value using the V algorithm
	'WEEKW w . Informat' on page 1042	Reads the format of the number-of-week value within the year and returns a SAS datevalue using the W algorithm
	'YYMMDD w . Informat' on page 1042	Reads date values in the form yymmdd or yyyymmdd
	'YYMMN w . Informat' on page 1043	Reads date values in the form yyyymm or yymm
	'YYQ w . Informat' on page 1045	Reads quarters of the year in the form yy Q q or yyyy Q q
Hebrew text handling	'$CPTDW w . Informat' on page 952	Reads a character string that is encoded in Hebrew DOS (cp862) and then converts the character string to Windows (cp1255) encoding
	'$CPTWD w . Informat' on page 952	Reads a character string that is encoded in Windows (cp1255) and then converts the character string to Hebrew DOS (cp862) encoding
Numeric	'BINARY w . d Informat' on page 971	Converts positive binary values to integers
	'BITS w . d Informat' on page 972	Extracts bits
	'BZ w . d Informat' on page 973	Converts blanks to 0s
	'COMMA w . d Informat' on page 975	Removes embedded characters
	'COMMAX w . d Informat' on page 976	Removes embedded characters
	'E w . d Informat' on page 981	Reads numeric values that are stored in scientific notation and double-precision scientific notation
	'EURO w . d Informat' on page 983	Reads numeric values and removes embedded characters in European currency and reverses the comma and decimal point
	'EUROX w . d Informat' on page 983	Reads numeric values and removes embedded characters in European currency
	'FLOAT w . d Informat' on page 983	Reads a native single-precision, floating-point value and divides it by 10 raised to the d th power
	'HEX w . Informat' on page 985	Converts hexadecimal positive binary values to either integer (fixed-point) or real (floating-point) binary values
	'IB w . d Informat' on page 986	Reads native integer binary (fixed-point) values, including negative values
	'IBR w . d Informat' on page 987	Reads integer binary (fixed-point) values in Intel and DEC formats
	'IEEE w . d Informat' on page 988	Reads an IEEE floating-point value and divides it by 10 raised to the d th power
	'NLMNY w . d Informat' on page 996	Reads monetary data in the specified locate for the local expression, and converts the data to a numeric value
	'NLMNYI w . d Informat' on page 996	Reads monetary data in the specified locale for the international expression, and then converts the data to a numeric value
	'NLNUM w . d Informat' on page 996	Reads numeric data in the specified locale for local expressions, and then converts the data to a numeric value
	'NLNUMI w . d Informat' on page 997	Reads numeric data in the specified locale for international expressions, and then converts the data to a numeric value
	'NLPCT w . d Informat' on page 997	Reads percentage data in the specified locale for local expressions, and then converts the data to a numeric value
	'NLPCTI w . d Informat' on page 997	Reads percentage data in the specified locale for international expressions, and then converts the data to a numeric value
	'NUMX w . d Informat' on page 998	Reads numeric values with a comma in place of the decimal point
	'OCTAL w . d Informat' on page 999	Converts positive octal values to integers
	'PD w . d Informat' on page 1000	Reads data that are stored in IBM packed decimal format
	'PERCENT w . d Informat' on page 1005	Reads percentages as numeric values
	'PIB w . d Informat' on page 1006	Reads positive integer binary (fixed-point) values
	'PIBR w . d Informat' on page 1008	Reads positive integer binary (fixed-point) values in Intel and DEC formats
	'PK w . d Informat' on page 1009	Reads unsigned packed decimal data
	'RB w . d Informat' on page 1011	Reads numeric data that are stored in real binary (floating-point) notation
	'S370FF w . d Informat' on page 1017	Reads EBCDIC numeric data
	'S370FIB w . d Informat' on page 1018	Reads integer binary (fixed-point) values, including negative values, in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FIBU w . d Informat' on page 1020	Reads unsigned integer binary (fixed-point) values in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FPD w . d Informat' on page 1021	Reads packed data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FPDU w . d Informat' on page 1022	Reads unsigned packed decimal data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FPIB w . d Informat' on page 1023	Reads positive integer binary (fixed-point) values in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FRB w . d Informat' on page 1025	Reads real binary (floating-point) data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FZD w . d Informat' on page 1026	Reads zoned decimal data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FZDL w . d Informat' on page 1027	Reads zoned decimal leading-sign data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FZDS w . d Informat' on page 1028	Reads zoned decimal separate leading-sign data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FZDT w . d Informat' on page 1030	Reads zoned decimal separate trailing-sign data in IBM mainframe format
	'S370FZDU w . d Informat' on page 1031	Reads unsigned zoned decimal data in IBM mainframe format
	'TRAILSGN w . Informat' on page 1037	Reads a trailing plus (+) or minus (-) sign
	'VAXRB w . d Informat' on page 1039	Reads real binary (floating-point) data in VMS format
	' w . d Informat' on page 1040	Reads standard numeric data
	'YEN w . d Informat' on page 1042	Removes embedded yen signs, commas, and decimal points
	'ZD w . d Informat' on page 1046	Reads zoned decimal data
	'ZDB w . d Informat' on page 1048	Reads zoned decimal data in which zeros have been left blank
	'ZDV w . d Informat' on page 1048	Reads and validates zoned decimal data