SAS Informats
Informats, a contraction of input formats, are formats used by SAS to read data from a raw data source and store the value read into a sas dataset.

Informat (input statement) [$] informat [w].[d]

Note: the period. A period (.) is required

• $ indicates a character column
• informat is the name of the informat
• w is the field width
• d is the number of decimal places (for numeric variables only)

For more information see
SL:R, Chapter 3, Components of the SAS Language, SAS Informats
SL:R, Chapter 13, SAS Informats