topic Re: concatenate char columns in SAS Programming

concatenate char columns

Ronein — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 10:31:40 GMT

Hello

I want to combine 10 char columns and add a comma separator.

The problem that some columns has null value and then in the resulted field there are

For example:

The resulted value in first row is looking like that::

118-106-201-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I would like to see it as 118-106-201

What is the way to do it please?

The code statement that I run is

Reason_Reject=CATX('-',OF _temp1-_temp10);

Re: concatenate char columns

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 10:41:43 GMT

These cannot be missing character variables, as this works perfectly:

data test;
infile datalines dlm="," dsd truncover;
input (_temp1-_temp10) (:$3.);
Reason_Reject = CATX('-',OF _temp1-_temp10);
datalines;
118,106,201
;

Maxim 3: Know Your Data. Types, formats, content.

Re: concatenate char columns

PeterClemmensen — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 10:42:47 GMT

Does _temp4 contain a "." or an actual missing value " " ?

Re: concatenate char columns

Ronein — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 12:24:41 GMT

I found the reason, the fields were numeric and then SAS automatically convert them to char during the concatenation process and then value with null value were converted to '.'

Re: concatenate char columns

Ksharp — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 12:30:48 GMT

Add the following option at top of your code.

options missing=' ';