NOTE: More on LENGTH Functions

I got a good amount of feedback on my recent article on LENGTH functions, including a blog comment from Rick@SAS. In addition to providing some useful detail on LENGTH functions within SAS/IML, Rick also suggested:

I think a source of confusion with character missing values is that it doesn't matter how many blanks are in a string (0, 1, 2, or 20), the strings are all equivalent and all equal to the character missing value. That's why you can say
IF x = "" THEN...
and the statement works regardless of the length of x

Good point, Rick. I still recommend using the MISSING function, not least for the clarity of purpose, but Rick's use of the character constant ("") certainly removes the uncertainty around the LENGTH function.