Variable names can only contain letters, numbers, or the underscore (_) character, and they must begin with a letter. By default, names are case insensitive; that is, uppercase and lowercase letters are considered the same, meaning that variables named myvar, MYVAR, and MyVar are all equivalent.
Variables can be global or local in scope. If a variable is declared in the
PROC GLOBAL block, then the variable has a global scope and can be referenced anywhere within your program. However, if a variable is declared at a lower level, such as the
PROC for a form or block, then the variable is only accessible within that
PROC.
In CSPro, numeric variables are stored internally in floating point format. They can accommodate numbers of extremely small or large size, positive or negative, as well as
special values.
Alphanumeric data can contain any combination of letters, digits, blanks, or other special characters. As no string size is required when declaring a
string variable, there is no limit to the size of the string. This is an improvement over the
alpha statement which cannot exceed 8,192 characters.