The ROOTOFNEGATIVE option determines the result of any attempt to obtain a root of a negative number.
Allows any attempt to obtain a root of a negative number. Consequently, a statement that attempts to obtain a root of a negative number executes without an error; however, the result of the attempt to obtain the root is NA. When you are working with a dimensioned variable or expression, setting ROOTOFNEGATIVE to YES enables you to obtain the root of most of the expression's values when a few of the values might be negative.
(Default) Disallows any attempt to obtain a root of a negative number. Any statement that attempts to obtain a root of a negative number stops executing and an error message is produced.
Raising a number to a noninteger power (for example, 5 ** 0.3 or 14 ** 2.7) is an attempt to obtain a root.
Example 5-94 The Effect of ROOTOFNEGATIVE
The following example shows the effect of changing the value of the ROOTOFNEGATIVE option. The variable TESTNUMBER has a value of -56. When you execute a SHOW statement such as the following one, without changing the ROOTOFNEGATIVE option from its default value of NO, an attempt is made to obtain the square root and then an error message is produced.
SHOW SQRT(testnumber)
When you change ROOTOFNEGATIVE to YES, the same statement executes without error
ROOTOFNEGATIVE = YES SHOW SQRT(testnumber)
and produces the following result.
NA