topic Re: substr for the last occurrence of a blank space in a string? in SAS Programming

substr for the last occurrence of a blank space in a string?

buechler66 — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 17:52:10 GMT

Hi folks. I'm looking for a method to create a variable of the string up until the last blank space in the string.

nm1 = 'SAN ANTONIO CA';

nm2 = 'NEW SAN ANTONIO CA'

So for nm1 I'd want to return only 'SAN ANTONIO'

So for nm2 I'd want to return only 'NEW SAN ANTONIO'

Any thoughts on how to do this? Basically the requirement is to return everything prior to the final blank space in the string? But the under of blank spaces may vary.

Any help would be appreciated.

Re: substr for the last occurrence of a blank space in a string?

novinosrin — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:09:49 GMT

Hi @buechler66 Please see if this helps

data have;
length nm $50;
nm =  'SAN ANTONIO CA';
output;
nm =  'NEW SAN ANTONIO CA';
output;
run;

data want;
 set have;
 length want $30;
 want=substr(nm,1,findc(trim(nm),' ','b')-1);
run;

Or something fancy

 want=prxchange('s/(.*)\s.+$/$1/',-1, trim(nm));

Re: substr for the last occurrence of a blank space in a string?

buechler66 — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:24:32 GMT

I appreciate you taking the time to help. Greatly!

Re: substr for the last occurrence of a blank space in a string?

Tom — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:50:07 GMT

It is easy to find the value after the last space

scan(name,-1,' ')

Once you have that you can figure out how many characters to chop off.

susbtrn(name,1,length(name)-length(scan(name,-1,' '))

But what do want to do when there are no embedded spaces?

name='LONDON';

Do you want an empty string? Or do you want to remove nothing?

Re: substr for the last occurrence of a blank space in a string?

buechler66 — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 21:02:22 GMT

Ty for posting this. I appreciate ur time.