topic Re: Perl regular expression in SAS Programming

Perl regular expression

Suzy_Cat — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 01:55:11 GMT

Hi there,

Any one can help me on Perl regular expression:

Example:

data have;

input ID:$1. Words :$50.;

datalines;

A Googled

B G.O.L

C GOL

D "G O L"

;

run;

data test;

set have;

Check=prxmatch("/GOL|G.O.L|G O L/", words);

run;

The result I need is B,C,D but not A by using prxmatch

Thanks for help 🙂

Re: Perl regular expression

novinosrin — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 01:59:45 GMT

Hi @Suzy_Cat You have answered your question. What's the problem? Are you asking to subset?

data have;

input ID:$1. Words  $50.;

datalines;
A Googled
B G.O.L
C GOL
D "G O L"
;


run;

data test;

set have;

if prxmatch("/GOL|G.O.L|G O L/", words);

run;

Re: Perl regular expression

ChrisNZ — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:03:57 GMT

What's the problem?

Maybe this is simpler?

CHECK = prxmatch('/G\W?O\W?L/', WORDS);

Re: Perl regular expression

Suzy_Cat — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:12:02 GMT

whoops my bad, accidently put / instead of | between, no wonder it was not working earlier...

Check=prxmatch("/GOL|G.O.L/G O L/", words);

also there is an extra : when i tested earlier

data have;

input ID:$1. Words :$50.;

datalines;

A Googled

B G.O.L

C GOL

D "G O L"

;

run;

Re: Perl regular expression

novinosrin — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:09:15 GMT

A precise regex would be

data test;

set have;
if prxmatch("/G(\.|\s)?O(\.|\s)?L/", words);

run;

checking for dot and blank whitespace char with ? making the check of the captured buffer optional

Re: Perl regular expression

Suzy_Cat — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:13:39 GMT

Thank you Chris,

Your suggestion is exactly what I was after...

🙂

Re: Perl regular expression

Suzy_Cat — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:25:22 GMT

@novinosrin, That is exactly what i wanted! Thanks heaps for the help out 🙂

Re: Perl regular expression

novinosrin — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:31:26 GMT

Hi @Suzy_Cat A further spice by not having create capture buffer 2 as we can back reference. I'm an idiot sometimes.

data have;

input ID:$1. Words  $50.;

datalines;
A Googled
B G.O.L
C GOL
D "G O L"
;


run;

data test;

set have;
if prxmatch("/G(\.|\s)?O\1?L/", words);

run;

Re: Perl regular expression

Suzy_Cat — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:42:19 GMT

Even better! Noted down the formula for future usage.