topic Converting character to numeric value in SAS Programming

Converting character to numeric value

nickspencer — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 15:49:48 GMT

Hi,
I am trying to convert a character variable to numeric but when I use input function it is returning me the numeric value in scientific notation. Is there a way I can get a proper value ?
I am using the input function as below
acct_id=input(accountid, 20.);

I tried the best32. informat. It still returns in the same format with scientific notation like 4.9975044E14
The original format/informat of the accountid shows $15.

Any help that will help me get the proper value will be appreciated. Thanks

Re: Converting character to numeric value

Astounding — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 15:53:27 GMT

You're getting the right value originally.

The problem is with formatting. Add:

format acct_id 15.;

That should display ACCT_ID without scientific notation (assuming, as you say, that values are limited to 15 digits).

Re: Converting character to numeric value

PaigeMiller — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 16:12:35 GMT

I don't see any possible reason why you'd want to convert ACCT_ID to a number anyway. You don't need it to be numeric, there's no such thing as performing arithmetic on an ACCT_ID, for example, to find the average ACCT_ID.

Re: Converting character to numeric value

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 16:27:53 GMT

If your character accountid does have more than 15 digits, you must not do that, as you will lose precision in the conversion.

Re: Converting character to numeric value

ballardw — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 18:47:36 GMT

@nickspencer wrote:
Hi,
I am trying to convert a character variable to numeric but when I use input function it is returning me the numeric value in scientific notation. Is there a way I can get a proper value ?
I am using the input function as below
acct_id=input(accountid, 20.);

I tried the best32. informat. It still returns in the same format with scientific notation like 4.9975044E14
The original format/informat of the accountid shows $15.

Any help that will help me get the proper value will be appreciated. Thanks

Please tell us what you expect to do with a numeric version of the account id that you cannot do with a character version.

Please.

Re: Converting character to numeric value

nickspencer — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 18:59:16 GMT

I am trying to load this data into a teradata table but for some reason it has the column as numeric

Re: Converting character to numeric value

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 19:27:14 GMT

Maybe for space reasons. DB systems usually use 8 bytes for numbers, like SAS, so you save can 7 bytes.

As long as you can be sure that you never have more than 15 digits, you can store that reliably as a number.