topic find variable value in string in SAS Programming

find variable value in string

somebody — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 05:35:41 GMT

I would like to check if a variable value is in a string. if so, return the position or a boolean value. For example, the variable Student takes 1 of the following values: Mary, Mike, Luke. If the value of this variable is in the list &pass_students then the variable Rank takes the value of the position of that student in the string.

%let pass_student = Mary Daniel Luke Adam Eva;
data WORK.CLASS(label='Student Data');
 infile datalines dsd truncover;
 input student:$8.;
 datalines;
 Mary 
 Peter 
 Luke
 Carol
 Henry
 ;;;;
run;

So far, I tried:

data class; set class;
	temp="&pass_student.";
	rank= find(student,temp,'t');
run;

Which kinda work, but it is case sensitive. How do I fix this? is there a better way to get what I want?

Re: find variable value in string

Patrick — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 05:06:22 GMT

The 'i' switch allows for case insensitive searches. Also as you're searching for words I'd be using findw() instead of find().

%let pass_student = Mary Daniel Luke Adam Eva;
data class; 
  set class;
	rank= findw(student,"&pass_student.",'it');
run;

Re: find variable value in string

somebody — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 05:30:28 GMT

Hi, this does not work. rank returns 0 for all obs

Re: find variable value in string

Patrick — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 10:01:12 GMT

Then your initial code never worked.

I've now changed the this in below code using variable student as 2nd parameter to the function.

data class;
  student='Daniel'; output;
  student='Alfred'; output;
  student='Luke'; output;
  stop;
run;

%let pass_student = Mary Daniel Luke Adam Eva;
data class; 
  set class;
	rank= find("&pass_student.",student,'it');
run;