Can I Promote Notes About Uninitialized Variables to Errors

Question

When SAS encounters an uninitialized variable, it will output a note to the log that looks like this:

NOTE: Variable not_in_data is uninitialized.

Is it possible to have SAS output that message as a warning or an error instead?

Answer 1

Yes (in 9.4 or later):

option varinitchk = error;

Default value is note, other possible values are nonote and warning.

There is also undocumented feature that changes certain notes to errors. You can either set the option using option dsoptions = note2err; or by adding / note2err to a data statement. I found a list on SAS-L of the notes this option changes to errors:

19   Variable %*v is uninitialized.
97   Missing values were generated as a result of
98   Division by zero detected at %2q.
99   Mathematical operations could not be performed
108  Invalid numeric data, '%*s' , at %2q.
109  Invalid character data, %f , at %2q.
110  Invalid %sargument to function %b at %2q.
139  Argument to function %*s is not a known variable name:  %*v.
140  Argument to function %*s is not a valid variable name:  %*s.
205  Invalid argument(s) to the exponential operator "**" at %2q.
208  Invalid numeric data, %*s='%*s' , at %2q.
209  Invalid character data, %*s=%f , at %2q.
223  A number has become too large at %2q. %w%*s
224  A number has become too large during the compilation phase.
225  Division by zero detected during the compilation phase.
242  Invalid argument(s) to the exponential operator "**".
258  Invalid argument to function %*b at %2q.
259  Invalid first argument to function %*b at %2q.
260  Invalid second argument to function %*b at %2q.
261  Invalid third argument to function %*b at %2q.
262  Invalid fourth argument to function %*b at %2q.
267  Argument %d to function %*b at %2q is invalid.
356  The SUBSTR pseudo-variable function does not allow character
424  Character values have been converted to numeric
425  Numeric values have been converted to character
429  A number has become too large during the compilation phase,
430  Division by zero detected during the compilation phase,
484  Format %*b was not found or could not be loaded.
485  Informat %*b was not found or could not be loaded.

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