sql does not respect my fcmp function length - sas

Question

Can anybody explain to me how to get PROC SQL to give the results of my custom function the length I specify in the function definition? Datastep does it fine, but SQL gives me the default length of 200 characters.
Here is code that demonstrates the issue:
proc fcmp outlib = work.funcs.funcs ;
* Note type/length specification ;
function testy(istr $) $11 ;
return ('bibbitybobb') ;
endsub ;
quit ;
options cmplib = work.funcs ;
data from_dstep ;
set sashelp.class ;
tes = testy(name) ;
run ;
proc sql ;
create table from_sql as
select *
, testy(name) as tes
from sashelp.class
;
describe table from_dstep ;
describe table from_sql ;
quit ;
My log on that is:
47 describe table from_dstep ;
NOTE: SQL table WORK.FROM_DSTEP was created like:
create table WORK.FROM_DSTEP( bufsize=65536 )
(
Name char(8),
Sex char(1),
Age num,
Height num,
Weight num,
tes char(11)
);
48 describe table from_sql ;
NOTE: SQL table WORK.FROM_SQL was created like:
create table WORK.FROM_SQL( bufsize=65536 )
(
Name char(8),
Sex char(1),
Age num,
Height num,
Weight num,
tes char(200)
);
As you can see, the datastep gave me a length of 11 on my 'tes' variable, but sql gives me 200.
Is there a way to get length 11 when using SQL?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I don't think so. SQL and data step work differently in this regard, other built-in functions have some of the same issues (CATS/CATX for example have different defaults in SQL than in data step). I think it has to do with how compilation works in the data step vs. interpretation in SQL. I believe I've seen something specifying this was expected behavior, but I can't seem to find it right now; if you'd like more detail and nobody else here can provide it, perhaps start a track with SAS support and see what they say.
You can directly set it in SQL of course:
proc sql ;
create table from_sql as
select *
, testy(name) as tes length 11
from sashelp.class
;
quit;