topic Re: Compress specific characters/strings in SAS Programming

Compress specific characters/strings

NewSASPerson — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:46:32 GMT

I would like to compress only items in the parenthesis as well as the parenthesis without affecting any place else. The code below gives me

The quick brown fox jumps over lazy dogs. The quick brownfox jumps over the lazy dog.

but what I need is

The quick brown fox jumps over 23 lazy dogs. The quick brown-fox jumps over the lazy dog.

data have;
text = "The quick brown fox jumps over 23 lazy dogs.(1-27) The quick brown-fox jumps over the lazy dog.(28)";
run;
 
data want;
set have;
text2 = compress(text,"()-1234567890");
run;

I would appreciate some help with this.

Thank you.

Re: Compress specific characters/strings

ed_sas_member — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:56:06 GMT

Hi @NewSASPerson

You can try to use a pearl regular expression:

data want;
	set have;
	text2=prxchange('s/\([\d-]+\)//i', -1, text);
run;

This looks for the pattern \([\d-]+\) in the variable 'text' as many times as needed (second argument = -1)

\([\d-]+\) = a parenthesis followed by one or more digits or hyphens followed by a parenthesis.

Re: Compress specific characters/strings

NewSASPerson — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:58:11 GMT

Perfect! Thank you so much this worked.

Re: Compress specific characters/strings

ed_sas_member — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:58:49 GMT

You're welcome @NewSASPerson !