topic scan function in SAS Programming

scan function

Aman4SAS — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 13:14:48 GMT

Can we use string as delimiter.

like . scan(word,"AND",1);

Re: scan function

RW9 — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 13:25:56 GMT

Have you read the manual:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000214639.htm

Particularly:

charlist

specifies an optional character expression that initializes a list of characters. This list determines which characters are used as the delimiters that separate words. The following rules apply:

By default, all characters in charlist are used as delimiters.
If you specify the K modifier in the modifier argument, then all characters that are not in charlist are used as delimiters.

Tip:	You can add more characters to charlist by using other modifiers.

The string you provide is not used "as is", any place where A, N, or D is found is a delimiter. Use substr() and findw()

Re: scan function

ballardw — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 14:55:23 GMT

@Aman4SAS wrote:

Can we use string as delimiter.

like . scan(word,"AND",1);

See it this gives you enough to get started.

data example;
   x="This is a phrase with the word and embedded";
  newx = tranwrd(x,' and ','+');
  y=scan(newx,1,'+');
run;

The spaces around the ' and ' are there to get and as word so it does not get replaced inside words like "sand".

Use a character such as the + that 1) will not appear in your data and 2) is not a normal delimiter for the scan function so you get breaks where you expect it.

TRANWRD function is case sensitive. You may need either multiple passes through TRANWRD if you need " And " as well as " and " " AND " and so forth. Or UPCASE or LOWCASE the whole string.