topic Re: How can I delete all single character in a column? in New SAS User

How can I delete all single character in a column?

Neptun83 — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 17:21:06 GMT

Hello !

I would like to delete all single character (between two spaces)in a column.

For example : test h text2 z

In this example I would like to delete 'h' and 'z'.

Thank you, if you can help me.

I use SAS EG 8.2.4.

Re: How can I delete all single character in a column?

Tom — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 17:42:00 GMT

The version of Enterprise Guide should not matter since you will have to use actual SAS code for this. And it should not matter what version of SAS you are using.

You could probably construct a regular expression that would do it.

But here is a method using regular SAS functions, COUNTW(), SCAN() and CATX().

data want;
  set have;
  newvar=oldvar;
  newvar=' ';
  do i=1 to countw(oldvar,' ');
    if length(scan(oldvar,i,' '))>1 then newvar=catx(' ',newvar,scan(oldvar,i,' '));
  end;
run;

Re: How can I delete all single character in a column?

Patrick — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 23:57:21 GMT

Here an approach using a regular expression

data have;
  infile datalines truncover;
  input str $40.;
  datalines;
test h text2 z
a b test h text2 z
test h text2
;

data want; 
  set have;
  length str2 $40;
  str2=prxchange('s/\b\w\b\s?//oi',-1,str);
run;

Re: How can I delete all single character in a column?

Neptun83 — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 22:07:33 GMT

Thank you for the replies guys! Both of them were very useful for me!