Support for Long Variable Names - Details

Since Version 7 and Version 8 variable names (column names) can now be up to 32 characters in mixed case and can also contain characters that were invalid in prior releases, SAS/TOOLKIT applications designed for SAS Version 6 will require , some changes in existing code. Fortunately, these changes should not be extensive.

If you are writing new SAS/TOOLKIT applications designed for SAS Version 8, this is not a problem, as your compiled application will accommodate long variable names.

Conversion Requirements For All Version 6 Procedures to run under Version 7 or Version 8

Run your grammar through PROC USERPROC

Even if you are certain that your application will never encounter long names, you must still run your grammar through PROC USERPROC because the grammar functions are different in Version 7 and Version 8. If you forget to rebuild your grammar function and then try to run your procedure with the older grammar object, you will have problems. See the USERPROC procedure in SAS/TOOLKIT Software Usage and Reference for more information.

Required Changes for Version 6 Applications to Work with Long Names

If your existing Version 6 applications meet any of the following conditions, then you will have to change your code in order for your applications to accommodate long names in SAS Version 7 or SAS Version 8. In general, the changes are not extensive.

If your existing Version 6 applications will never encounter any of the following conditions, you might not need to make any changes.

If you have

• reserved an eight-byte variable to hold a variable name, this will cause problems if a user works with a data set with long names. example
• assumed that incoming variables will be converted to uppercase, this is no longer true and therefore can cause a variety of problems. example
  
• used any of the following routines, which have an eight-character dependency:
  • SAS_XOOPEN
  • SAS_XVFIND
  • SAS_ZNAME

  In Version 8.1, new versions of these routines have been introduced to provide pointer/length to allow longer names. The names of these routines are SAS_XOOPENX  and SAS_ZNAMEX. The old routines will continue to be supported.

If you have 

• used the SYMINFO structure, which is used by SAS_DSS routines, see  changes to SYMINFO for more information.
• used C to write a procedure and listed the name defined by U_MAIN in uppercase, this must now be lowercase. See changes to U_MAIN for more information.
• used NAME lexicals in your grammar, the name lexical must be changed to NAMEX if you plan to support long names, otherwise it needs to be changed to NAME8. Similarly, if you used NAMELIST, change it to NAMELISTX or NAMELIST8 accordingly. If you used ONENAME, change it to ONENAMEX or ONENAME8 accordingly.

Additional Changes for User-Written Engines

The changes to your initialization code will require setting some new fields in engstat. See Changes to engstat for more information

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