topic Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase in SAS Programming

Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Dipu — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:07:34 GMT

Hello All,

Can you please suggest me-

How to convert the first letter of string to upper case without using upcase function.The data is in SAS dataset.

Thank you

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Jagadishkatam — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:18:18 GMT

We could use the propcase function instead of upcase function.

This function will capitalize the first letter in a word.

Thanks,

Jag

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Reeza — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:41:29 GMT

Why not upcase?

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

art297 — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:41:40 GMT

Sounds like a class project. Regardless, you can always mimic the upcase function using the byte and rank functions. e.g.:

data have;

input string $50.;

cards;

this is Garbage

More garbage

buNch of Characters

;

data want;

set have;

if rank(substr(string,1,1)) in (97:122) then

substr(string,1,1)=byte(rank(substr(string,1,1))-32);

run;

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Dipu — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:42:55 GMT

Hi Jagdish thank you for the prompt response.

unfortunately I can not use Propcase as well.Please suggest me other option, if we have

Thank you

Deepak

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Dipu — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 18:02:23 GMT

Hi Arthur,

This is awesome but again it is not working on my dataset.

Before writing errors which I am getting can you please throw some light, what exactly you did? I am unable to understand those figures. Please guide

@Reeza- Even I don't know. why not upcase, I assume upcase will convert the entire string.

Thank you

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Tom — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 18:18:26 GMT

What is not working? is it getting an error? not changing anything?

Show an example.

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

data_null__ — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 18:40:39 GMT

Indeed why not UPCASE?

data test;
   input str $20.; 
   substr(str,1,1)=upcase(first(str));
   cards; 
this
 that.
Hello.
;;;;
   run;

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Dipu — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:03:38 GMT

@@@- This is what I tried!!

Please guide-

data j;

input name $20.;

cards;

mahesh

deepak

alex

susan

maxia

run;

data J1 ;

set J;

if rank(substr(string,1,1)) in (97:122) then

substr(string,1,1)=byte(rank(substr(string,1,1))-32);

run;

ERRRORRRR******

66 data J1 ;

67 set J;

68 if rank(substr(string,1,1)) in (97:122) then

69 substr(string,1,1)=byte(rank(substr(string,1,1))-32);

356

ERROR: Argument to SUBSTR must be character.

NOTE 356-185: The SUBSTR pseudo-variable function does not allow character constants,

expressions, or numeric constants for the first argument.

70 run;

NOTE: Numeric values have been converted to character values at the places given by:

(Line):(Column).

68:18 69:41

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

WARNING: The data set WORK.J1 may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0

observations and 2 variables.

WARNING: Data set WORK.J1 was not replaced because this step was stopped.

NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

real time 0.01 seconds

cpu time 0.00 seconds

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

jakarman — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:07:22 GMT

propcase allowed?

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Dipu — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:19:16 GMT

Propcase is not allowed. Thats the problem-

Though What Arthur has suggested, it works but not in my case, as mentioned above. (Please explain that step with RANK and BYTES and how did you calculate those numbers--97:122 and -32)
secondly @data_null_ has also suggested, it will work but looking for w/o propcase and upcase.

Even this works- But as I said looking for alternative

data j;

input name $50.;

cards;

lavanya

daniel

nandu

rachel

vandana

run;

data J1;

set j;

Length name_newvalues $50.;

lenstr=length(trim(name));

name_newvalue=upcase(substr(trim(name),1,1))||substr(trim(name),2,lenstr-1);

run;

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

art297 — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:26:49 GMT

It isn't working for you because your file has a variable called "name" while my example had a variable called "string". You would have to change;

if rank(substr(string,1,1)) in (97:122) then

substr(string,1,1)=byte(rank(substr(string,1,1))-32);

if rank(substr(name,1,1)) in (97:122) then

substr(name,1,1)=byte(rank(substr(name,1,1))-32);

I'm also assuming that you are on an ASCII-based system like windows. Otherwise, the values would have to be changed to reflect EBCIDIC.

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Reeza — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:30:19 GMT

So this isn't really a practical question then, more of a homework assignment?

Substring the first letter out, use translate function to switch lower case to upper case and concatenate back.

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

art297 — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:54:30 GMT

You didn't say what wasn't working. The explanation of the code is fairly simple. The character values can be found at:

Table of ASCII Characters

Look at the decimal values of A-Z and a-z.

Rank function:SAS(R) 9.2 Language Reference: Dictionary, Fourth Edition

Byte function: SAS(R) 9.2 Language Reference: Dictionary, Fourth Edition

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

Dipu — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:09:42 GMT

Thank you for the explanation. I would like to go through the links first (Very well answered).

-- Actually, I have assigned this task by the data management (Oracle) Dpt of my company.

They can do this with oracle as well but they wanted to do it in SAS. Thanks though and also concatenation is the great approach

Thank you all of you..

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

PGStats — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:55:31 GMT

Nobody mentioned pattern matching? Impress your friends at DM with:

data _null_;

str = "capitalize this";

Cstr = prxchange("s/^(.)/\u\1/o", 1, str);

put Cstr;

run;

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

data_null__ — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 22:52:23 GMT

That's the "correct answer".

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

PGStats — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 23:59:06 GMT

Beware of solutions that do not work with accented characters. Compare :

data _null_;

retain MATCHstr RANKstr UPCASEstr PROPCASEstr "évariste Galois";

MATCHstr = prxchange("s/^(.)/\u\1/o",1,MATCHstr);

if rank(substr(RANKstr,1,1)) in (97:122) then

substr(RANKstr,1,1)=byte(rank(substr(RANKstr,1,1))-32);

substr(UPCASEstr,1,1) = UPCASE(substr(UPCASEstr,1,1));

substr(PROPCASEstr,1,1) = PROPCASE(substr(PROPCASEstr,1,1));

put _ALL_ ;

run;

MATCHstr=Évariste Galois RANKstr=évariste Galois UPCASEstr=Évariste Galois

PROPCASEstr=Évariste Galois _ERROR_=0 _N_=1

Re: Convert First letter of string to upper case WITHOUT using upcase

jakarman — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 06:03:07 GMT

An beware of the assumption of 1-byte = 1 character it is something many people learned and thinking it is true.

We are living in the age of Unicode (UTF-8) word excel html are using that. Just old dinosaurusses are forgetting this.
If you like to dig into that area of I18N see:

SAS(R) 9.4 National Language Support (NLS): Reference Guide, Second Edition