topic Re: Remove last characters from a string preceded by a blank (company name) in SAS Programming

Remove last characters from a string preceded by a blank (company name)

Agent1592 — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 04:50:39 GMT

Hi guys:

I am looking for a smart solution to remove the last character (last two characters) from a string that is preceded by a space(blank). I know how to do it for the & character but I am not sure about the others. I have more than 23,000 company names and I would not like to strip these company names from letters accidentally.

data test;
input cname $40.;
string=prxchange('s/\&&$//',-1,strip(ur_string));
cards;
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE &
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE A
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE I
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE C
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE U
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE H
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE H
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE PA
; run;

Re: Remove last characters from a string preceded by a blank (company name)

PGStats — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 05:18:26 GMT

To remove a space followed by 1 or 2 non spaces, possibly followed by spaces until the end of the string:

data test;
input cname $60.;
string=prxchange('s/\s\S{1,2}\s*$//o', 1, cname);
cards;
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE &
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE A
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE I
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE C
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE U
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE H
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE H
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE PA
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE INC
;

proc print; run;

Re: Remove last characters from a string preceded by a blank (company name)

andreas_lds — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 06:00:30 GMT

Another solution without regular expressions:

data test;
   length cname $ 40 string $ 40 ;
   input cname $40.;

   string = substr(cname, 1, findc(trim(cname), ' ', 'b'));

   cards;
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE &A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE A
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE I
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE C
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE U
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE H
A G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE HA G SIMPSON AUTOMOTIVE PA
; 
run;

Re: Remove last characters from a string preceded by a blank (company name)

Agent1592 — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 08:39:08 GMT

Thank you.