I get the following error message - ERROR: Asterisks are an indication of a format width problem

CPS
1

I get the following message

ERROR: Asterisks are an indication of a format width problem

I’m using the command file and formats provided with the dataset in SAS. I’ve tried removing the code to format the IND and OCC variables which are the only two variables affected by this error…of course the two variables I need the most…and still get the same error.

If anyone has dealt with this and has a fix I would greatly appreciate the help - google searches have not been fruitful.

2

I was not able to replicate this error in SAS with the variables you mentioned. This error typically means that the width of the data is longer than the width of the format; thus, it cannot be displayed. Since I was not able to replicate the error, I would recommend re-downloading the zipped data file from your data extracts page, unzipping the file using a program such as 7-zip, and attempting to read the data in again.

I hope this helps.