topic which modifier to use for COUNTW function not to count missing values as 1 in SAS Programming

which modifier to use for COUNTW function not to count missing values as 1

knveraraju91 — Fri, 08 May 2020 19:59:33 GMT

Dear,

In my program, the COUNTW function counts words as 1 when the values are missing. How to avoid. Please suggest. i am getting dtf='M' when date is missing.

output needed

id date dtf

1 2018-08-29
2 2018-08 D
3 2018 M
4

output getting

id date dtf

1 2018-08-29
2 2018-08 D
3 2018 M
4 M

data one;
input id date $10.;
datalines;
1 2018-08-29
2 2018-08
3 2018
4
;

data two;
set one;
dtf=choosec(countw(date, "-"),"M", "D", " ");
 aaa=countw(date, "-");
 run;

Re: which modifier to use for COUNTW function not to count missing values as 1

novinosrin — Fri, 08 May 2020 20:13:53 GMT

HI @knveraraju91 You can use the T modifier for countw to count missings as 0.

 aaa=countw(date, "-",'t');

Re: which modifier to use for COUNTW function not to count missing values as 1

Tom — Fri, 08 May 2020 20:54:49 GMT

You could just switch to using COUNTC() to count the number of hyphens.