How can I make a character variable equal to the formatted value of a numeric variable for arbitrary SAS formats?

Question

If I have a numeric variable with a format, is there a way to get the formatted value as a character variable?

e.g. I would like to write something like the following to

Answer 1

I can do this with macro code and sashelp.vcolumn but it's a bit fiddly.

proc sql noprint;
  select trim(left(format)) into :format
    from sashelp.vcolumn
    where libname eq 'WORK' and memname eq 'TEST';
run;

data test2;
  set test;
  i_formatted = put(i, &format);
  put i_formatted;
run;