The main purpose of a character expression is to assign a character value to a SETC symbol. You can then use the SETC symbol to substitute the character string into a model statement.

You can also use a character expression as a value for comparison in condition tests and logical expressions. Also, a character expression provides the string from which characters can be selected by the substring notation.

Substitution of one or more character values into a character expression lets you use the character expression wherever you need to vary values for substitution or to control loops.

An attribute reference must be the only term in a character expression.