This paper describes the use of VARCHARs within the DATA step through various examples. This feature was added to SAS® 9.4m5 and may not be widely known. A VARCHAR allows for a varying length of data to be stored, as compared to a fixed length for character variables. Also, a VARCHAR allows for a much larger character storage than character variables.

Rick Langston, before his retirement, was a senior developer and manager within the Platform R&D Division at SAS Institute. Rick's responsibilities included PROC FORMAT, functions, date/time processing, licensing software, and SAS/TOOLKIT Software. He has delivered keynotes on various aspects of SAS for many regional and local SAS user group conferences since 1994. Rick is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a SAS user since 1977, and worked at SAS Institute for over 38 years, from 1980 until December 2018. In his…