topic Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error in SAS Programming

Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Babloo — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:17:11 GMT

May I know how to overcome the below error?

SAS code:

proc sql noprint;
     select 
          "FAULT_ID = "||compress(f_id)|| " ; "||" IF " || notupper(col_nm)|| " eq " || 0 || " and " || length(col_nm) || " eq " || 3 || " then output ; " 
     into :UPPERCASE
          separated by " "
     from oper_flt_ref
          where category="UPPERCASE" and tbl_nm="INSURANCE";
quit;

Log:

26         proc sql noprint;
27              select
28                   "FAULT_ID = "||compress(f_id)|| " ; "||" IF " || notupper(col_nm)|| " eq " || 0 || " and " || length(col_nm) ||
28       !  " eq " || 3 || " then output ; "
29              into :UPPERCASE
30                   separated by " "
31              from oper_flt_ref
32                   where category="UPPERCASE" and tbl_nm="INSURANCE";
ERROR: Concatenation (||) requires character operands.
NOTE: PROC SQL set option NOEXEC and will continue to check the syntax of statements.
33         quit;

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:22:08 GMT

0 and 3 are numbers; enclose them in quotes to make them strings.

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:23:16 GMT

You have to ask this question after 900 posts here? Really?

Sometimes I feel like talking to a brick wall.

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Shmuel — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:27:32 GMT

"length)col_nm)" result into a number.

Try to replace it into: "put(length(col_nm), 4. )" /* adapt length as need - 4 digits or ...? */

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:31:24 GMT

@Shmuel wrote:

"length)col_nm)" result into a number.

Try to replace it into: "put(length(col_nm), 4. )" /* adapt length as need - 4 digits or ...? */

notupper(col_nm)

will cause the same problem.

Using the cats() function (which automatically converts) should fix it.

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

FreelanceReinh — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:40:53 GMT

I'm not sure that the SAS code written to macro variable UPPERCASE would be very useful if it contained comparisons of two constants (such as "5 eq 0" or "3 eq 3"). So, maybe quoting the whole function call "length(col_nm)" (same with notupper) would come closer to what @Babloo needs.

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Babloo — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:47:19 GMT

Where to use cats function?

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:57:19 GMT

Thinking about it, this is not good at all. Instead of feeding a lot of code into a macro variable (which will sooner or later exceed the 64K limit of macro variables), this should be done in a data step with call execute.

But this all exceeds @Babloo's SAS skills by orders of magnitude, so he/she should refrain from wasting time with this and instead try to learn the SAS basics.

Re: Concatenation (||) requires character operands error

Shmuel — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 15:08:19 GMT

@Babloo wrote:
Where to use cats function?

TRY:

select
   cats("FAULT_ID = ", compress(f_id), " ;  IF ", notupper(col_nm), " eq 0 and ", 
           length(col_nm), " eq  3  then output ; ")
  .......