11.3 STRING

STRING creates new string variables.

STRING var_list (fmt_spec) [/var_list (fmt_spec)] […].

Specify a list of names for the variable you want to create, followed by the desired output format specification in parentheses (see Input and Output Formats). Variable widths are implicitly derived from the specified output formats. The created variables will be initialized to spaces.

If you want to create several variables with distinct output formats, you can either use two or more separate STRING commands, or you can specify further variable list and format specification pairs, each separated from the previous by a slash (‘/’).

The following example is one way to create three string variables; Two of the variables have format A24 and the other A80:

STRING firstname lastname (A24) / address (A80).

Here is another way to achieve the same result:

STRING firstname lastname (A24).
STRING address (A80).

… and here is yet another way:

STRING firstname (A24).
STRING lastname (A24).
STRING address (A80).