topic Re: Remove extra comma in different string location? in SAS Programming

Remove extra comma in different string location?

ybz12003 — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 20:41:53 GMT

Hello experts,

I would like to remove extra comma in different locations of the text. Sometimes, front, back, and in the middle. In addition, there might be a double at the front or in the end. Is there a way to do that? Thank you.

data Have;
      infile datalines delimiter='#';
  input Comments : $200.  ;
datalines;
	, , FAILURE TO THRIVE #
	CHOLESTASIS, ,  ANEMIA#
	UGESTAGE=33.4 WKS , ROP #
	ASD, , #
	, NON VERBAL, 
;
run;

data want;
      infile datalines delimiter='#';
  input Comments : $200.  ;
datalines;
	FAILURE TO THRIVE #
	CHOLESTASIS, ANEMIA#
	UGESTAGE=33.4 WKS , ROP #
	ASD#
	NON VERBAL 
;
run;

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

PaigeMiller — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 21:31:58 GMT

Always comma-space-comma? Use the TRANWRD function.

Comma at the end: Use the STRIP() function to remove leading and trailing blanks, then find the last character and remove it using

IF SUBSTR(REVERSE(string),1,1)=',' THEN STRING=SUBSTR(STRING,1,LENGTH(STRING)-1);

Comma at the beginning: obvious modification of the code to remove comma at the end

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

Ksharp — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 11:53:02 GMT

data Have;
      infile datalines delimiter='#';
  input Comments : $200.  ;
datalines;
	, , FAILURE TO THRIVE #
	CHOLESTASIS, ,  ANEMIA#
	UGESTAGE=33.4 WKS , ROP #
	ASD, , #
	, NON VERBAL, 
;
run;

data want;
 set have;
 temp=prxchange('s/,\s*,/,/',-1,Comments);
 want=prxchange('s/^\s*,\s*|\s*,\s*$//',-1,temp);
 drop temp;
run;

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

ybz12003 — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 04:30:48 GMT

Thank you so much!

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

PaigeMiller — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 11:21:25 GMT

@Ksharp

One of these days, I need to learn regular expressions. You have quite a mastery of them!

Which kind of brings up a question: I am pretty good at parsing strings using built in SAS functions such as SUBSTR() and ANYDIGIT() and dozens of other ones., what is the benefit of regular expressions over and above what SAS provides?

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

Ksharp — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 12:09:25 GMT

In some case, only regular expressions can get job done, therefore PRX was a must-have skill for sas programmer as much as Hash Table .

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

PaigeMiller — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 12:13:59 GMT

Thanks, @Ksharp , regular expressions are definitely on my list of things to learn, along with 27 bazillion other things (some of them having nothing to do with SAS).

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

ybz12003 — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:57:06 GMT

7 year ago was my first time seeing PERI. After 7 year, I still have no clue how to use it. LOL!!!

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

Ksharp — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 11:48:17 GMT

Are you learning R , Python ?

Re: Remove extra comma in different string location?

ybz12003 — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 00:36:43 GMT

Neither of them.