topic Using an IF ELSE statement to add a hyphen when a character is missing in SAS Programming

Using an IF ELSE statement to add a hyphen when a character is missing

hspears — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 19:48:33 GMT

Hello SAS Communities,

I am looking to change an Initials variable into the form of FML and if there is no middle initial F-L.

The current initials variable is in the form F.M.L and when there is no middle initial it looks like this F. L.

The output I have

The output I want is

Inits

RWP

NAE

TCJ

FLY

GSC

S-R

etc

Here is what I have so far

DATA WORK.data ;
SET import.records (RENAME=(Inits = initials ID=social ZipCode=ZipCd));

Inits

inits2 = COMPRESS(initials, '.');
IF length(inits2) = 2 THEN Inits = CATX('-', CHAR(inits2, 1), CHAR(inits2, 2));
ELSE Inits= inits2;

RUN;

This does not work because those with missing middle initials get outputted as just their first initial, ie S. R. is just S.

Thank you!

Re: Using an IF ELSE statement to add a hyphen when a character is missing

ChrisNZ — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 05:02:04 GMT

Your test looks good. What do you dislike?

Re: Using an IF ELSE statement to add a hyphen when a character is missing

Astounding — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 10:34:26 GMT

When you apply the COMPRESS function you remove the dots only. You need to remove blanks as well in order to get a length of 2. So the second parameter to COMPRESS should be:

inits2 = COMPRESS(initials, ' .');

That will get S. R. to come out as SR. WIthout that change, you are getting S R.