topic Re: cut an alphanumeric value in SAS Programming

cut an alphanumeric value

Caro17 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:27:59 GMT

Hey,

my boss wants to know how often he diagnosed a certain disease. That means I have alphanumeric values, e. g. "A12.9". Now I want to cut this value, so that I get in a different column "A12". I have tried several things but it didn't function.

For example I used a data-set with "diag = substr(diagnose,0,3);" however the column keeps empty. I tried also "substr(m.strdiagnose,0,3) as dia" within the select-statement in proc sql and the column keeps empty as well.

What else can I try to solve this problem? Thanx a lot for your help.

I am using SAS Enterprise Guide Version 7.15 HF2.

Caro

Re: cut an alphanumeric value

PaigeMiller — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:31:15 GMT

Its hard to generalize from a single example. Is there always a period in the character string? Do you always want the text to the left of the period?

Try

newstring = scan(oldstring,1,'.');

Re: cut an alphanumeric value

Caro17 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:36:08 GMT

Yes, the structure is always the same. And yes, I need the three characters on the left.

Re: cut an alphanumeric value

ed_sas_member — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:52:21 GMT

Hi @Caro17

Please try this, to begin with the character in first position

diag = substr(diagnose,1,3);

Best,

Re: cut an alphanumeric value

Astounding — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 19:00:21 GMT

Given that you always want the first three characters, here is a simple way:

data want;
   length newstring $ 3;
   set have;
   newstring = oldstring;
run;

There's only room to store 3 characters in NEWSTRING, so you will end up with the first three.

Re: cut an alphanumeric value

Tom — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 01:48:23 GMT

Position numbers start with 1, not zero. Just like normal counting.

Re: cut an alphanumeric value

Caro17 — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 05:28:57 GMT

I get the result I want with the version from PaigeMiller.

newstring = scan(oldstring,1,'.');

Thanks a lot!