topic Re: How to extract particular text from character string? in SAS Programming

How to extract particular text from character string?

Maisha_Huq — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 14:40:16 GMT

Hello!

I have a character variable for address which I'd like to use to create new variables for just the full address's

- street address

-city

-state

-zip

I am doing this using the substring function (i.e. state=substr(addr,length(addr)-1,2); )

however, the data is always entered so there is only space between the street address and city instead of, say, a comma.

Would anyone have suggestions for how I may go about creating the street address and city variables then?

The help is appreciated.

Re: How to extract particular text from character string?

art297 — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 15:42:31 GMT

If your data are really that consistent then you might be able to use something like:

data have;

informat street $100.;

length city $30.;

input street &;

city=scan(substr(_infile_,length(street)+1,),1,',');

state=scan(_infile_,-2,' ');

zip=scan(_infile_,-1,' ');

cards;

4552 east 32nd street, apt 4 new york, ny 12209-1234

23 nearby blvd. pittsburgh, pa 15217

;

Re: How to extract particular text from character string?

art297 — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 20:00:33 GMT

: Here is another thought. Depending upon the accuracy of your city names, you might be able to get around the various problems as follows:

data have;

length address $150;

input;

address=_infile_;

cards;

4552 east 32nd street, apt 4 albany, ny 12209-1234

23 nearby blvd. pittsburgh, pa 15217

12345 west north street, apt 12 (3rd floor) Arlington Heights, IL 60004-6667

;

filename dummy temp;

data _null_;

file dummy;

set have;

put address;

run;

data want (drop=citystate);

informat street $100.;

informat citystate $50.;

length city $30;

length state $3;

informat zip $10.;

infile dummy;

input;

_infile_=compbl(translate(_infile_,' ','09'x));

zip=scan(_infile_,-1,' ');

citystate=zipcity(substr(zip,1,5));

city=scan(citystate,1,',');

state=scan(citystate,2,',');

street=substr(_infile_,1,find(upcase(_infile_),strip(upcase(city)))-1);

run;

Re: How to extract particular text from character string?

Maisha_Huq — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 12:44:17 GMT

Hi Arthur,

I will try this! Something I left out, though: is there a way to extract a string (which we know is all uppercase) between two specific delimiters in SAS (i.e. my two delimiters are a double space and a comma)?

Re: How to extract particular text from character string?

RW9 — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 13:21:00 GMT

For fixed format strings you may take some time to read up on perl regular expressions. It could save you some time writing all the necessary if thens. http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/perl/regexp.html

I fyou are still going to use string functions, then look at index(). So if I had:

001 ABC, 12

And I do substr(string,index(string," ")+2,index(string,",") - (index(string," ")+2));

This means start taking characters from where I find two spaces (+2 so I don't get the spaces) up to where I find the comma (less two for the original spaces).