When a character constant is included in the SELECT statement’s item list, the constant is treated as a variable-length string. In Record Mode, this causes the constant to be prefixed with a two-byte field that defines the length of the character constant. This behavior affects how a record containing such constants is defined when imported later by BTEQ or another program.
To export a fixed-length character string, use a FORMAT phrase in the SQL SELECT statement. For example, the FORMAT phrase in the following SELECT statement causes the character constant 'First' to return as a fixed-length 30-character string:
SELECT 'First' (FORMAT 'X(30)');