# Rules for SAS Data Set Names

SAS Data Set names must be between 1 and 32 characters in length, and must be unique.

Note: Although the case of your data set name is retained, case differences alone do not make a name unique. For example, if you previously created “MYDATA”, you cannot create another data set named “MyData” until you delete the “MYData” variant.

Acceptable Characters

SAS Data Set names must start with a letter (A-Z or a-z) or the underscore (_).

Subsequent characters can consist of:

| • | letters: A-Z, a-z

| • | numbers: 0-9

| • | the underscore (_)

Caution: You should assume that characters not listed above are potentially problematic. Use them at your own risk.

Names cannot contain blanks or special characters except for the underscore.

Names can contain mixed-case letters. SAS internally converts the member name to uppercase. You cannot, therefore, use the same member name with a different combination of uppercase and lowercase letters to represent different variables. For example, customer, Customer, and CUSTOMER all represent the same member name. How the name on the disk appears is determined by the operating environment.