a pattern that the SAS System uses to determine how a column value should be displayed

a string directs the characters to be written to particular columns and spacing

Columns contain information in one of four types; users can specify how they want a query to format information it retrieves from character, number, date, or long columns. For example, they can choose to have information of type date appear as 14/08/90, or Tuesday Fourteenth August 1990, or any other valid date format.

For reports, sets the column format.

The type of data that an attribute or column may represent; for example, character, date, number, sound, or image.

Columns contain information in one of four types; users can specify how they want a query to format information it retrieves from character, number, date, or long columns. For example, they can choose to have information of type date appear as 23/11/98, or Monday Twenty-third November 1998, or any other valid date format.