This example uses an INVALUE statement to create a numeric informat that converts numeric and character raw data to numeric data. invalue eval 'O'=4 'S'=3 'E'=2 'C'=1 'N'=0; run; data proclib.points; ...

If you know that a numeric variable will be between 0 and 100, you can use a length of 3 to store the number and thus save space in your data set. For example: data mydata; length num 3; ...more SAS ...