variable formats displayed in record schema screens

The first record schema screen for a variable (single click on variable name) displays the external external (base 10) variable format (kind of a combination of the variable type and the input columns) whilst the second screen (double click on variable name) displays the internal the internal format(number of bytes required).

The VFORMAT function writes the variable's external (base 10) format. The VARLENG function will give you the number of internal bytes defined.

(extracted from email from David Baxter)