topic Re: Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text. in SAS Programming

Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text.

kryden — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 21:34:12 GMT

I am trying to concatenate several variables that contain strings that are all in a format that starts with a number, then as a space, dash, space, and then some text. For example, "200 - Example text".

No matter what I try, I'm only getting the number part to concatenate.

For example

FINAL = catx(', ', of Var1 - VAR3);

Is resulting in, "200, 1001, 1005" when it should be " 200 - Text, 1001 - Text, 1005 - Text".

Any help would be appreciated!

Re: Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text.

Krueger — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 21:38:33 GMT

Do you have sample data?

is your example above VAR1 = 200, VAR2 = Example, VAR3 = Text?

Edit: It sounds like you just want to use CAT function not CATX?

Re: Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text.

Patrick — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 21:49:01 GMT

May be this is about formatted and internal values of a variable. Have a look at below and check if that is what's happening to you.

proc format;
  value sometext
    100='100 text a'
    200='200 text b'
    300='300 text c'
    ;
quit;

data sample;
  var1=100; var2=200; var3=300;
  format var1 var2 var3 sometext.;
  concat1=catx(',',var1,var2,var3);
  concat2=catx(',',put(var1,sometext.),put(var2,sometext.),put(var3,sometext.));
  output;
  stop;
run;

proc print data=sample;
run;

Re: Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text.

ballardw — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 22:14:24 GMT

What variable holds the text value(s)?

What variable holds the numeric value(s)?

I think that you need to show some actual values and the entire data step that you attempted.

Instructions here: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/How-to-create-a-data-step-version-of-your-data-AKA-generate/ta-p/258712 will show how to turn an existing SAS data set into data step code that can be pasted into a forum code box using the {i} icon or attached as text to show exactly what you have and that we can test code against.

Re: Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text.

Reeza — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 22:43:59 GMT

Concur with Patrick, you likely have a format on your data that is changing the value.

Re: Concatenate stings that contain a number, a dash, and then some text.

kryden — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 23:12:40 GMT

Thanks Patrick!

It was indeed a formatting issue. As soon as I replaced var_name with put(var_name, format_name.) in the catx expression, I got what I was looking for.

I suppose that this is what I get when trying to code after a very long day!