topic Re: taking out dashes from ID in SAS Programming

taking out dashes from ID

desireatem — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:37:32 GMT

Hello-.

I have ID variable as such;

How can I take out the dashes (-) in the ID?

ID Age

1	01-1-001	40
2	01-1-001	40
3	01-1-001	40
4	01-1-001	40
5	01-1-002	29
6	01-1-002	29
7	01-1-002	29

Re: taking out dashes from ID

Astounding — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:47:13 GMT

To get rid of them:

ID = compress(ID, '-');

If you want to change them to blanks instead, use the TRANSLATE function instead of COMPRESS.

ID = translate(ID, ' ', '-');

Re: taking out dashes from ID

desireatem — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:58:42 GMT

Thanks you!

Re: taking out dashes from ID

Jagadishkatam — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:36:36 GMT

Alternatively, you can also try the perl regular expression

data want;
input id$;
id=prxchange('s/-//i',-1,id);
cards;
01-1-001
;

Re: taking out dashes from ID

Andygray — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 14:29:58 GMT

Hi @Jagadishkatam Appreciate your enthusiasm, however for this case(OP's requirement) I don't think PRX is an alternative. It is awfully slow when I tested with 40 million records. However, I like your thinking. PRX is better utilized for complex patterns as opposed to straight forward use of SAS functions such as this case.

Nonetheless, thank you for your contribution