DBFMTIGNORE SAS System Option

Specifies whether to ignore numeric formats.

Valid in: configuration file, SAS invocation, OPTIONS statement,SAS System Options window
Categories: Files: SAS Files
Input Control: Data Processing
Default: NODBFMTIGNORE
Restriction: This option pertains only to SAS formats that are numeric.
Data source: Teradata
See: SQL_FUNCTIONS= LIBNAME option, SAS In-Database Products: Administrator's Guide

Table of Contents

Syntax

Required Arguments

DBFMTIGNORE

specifies that numeric formats are ignored and FLOAT data type is created.

NODBFMTIGNORE

specifies that numeric formats are used.

Details

You normally use numeric formats to specify a database data type when processing output. SAS takes all nonnumeric formats (such as DATE, TIME, DATETIME, and CHAR) as hints when it processes output. So use this option to ignore numeric formats and create a FLOAT data type instead. For example, the SAS/ACCESS engine creates a table with a column type of INT for a SAS variable with a format of 5.0.

Last updated: February 3, 2026