data finance.newloan;
        set finance.records(drop=amount rate);
        TotalLoan+payment;
        if code='1' then Type='Fixed';
        else Type='Variable';
     run;

But look what happens when you submit this program.

During compilation, when creating a new variable, SAS software allocates as many bytes of storage space as there are characters in that variable's first value. In this particular case, the first value for the variable Type is Fixed, which is only five characters long. As execution continues and other values are assigned, they are all truncated to five characters. The value Variable is thus written to the data set as Varia.