topic Re: keep if variable contains.... in SAS Programming

keep if variable contains....

aarony — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 17:02:25 GMT

hi, im a new user and i m not sure how to keep the variables if the contain...

for example i have ISIN: HK0000077468. i want to keep the observations if ISIN contains HK.

could you kindly provide ur guidance?

Re: keep if variable contains....

JVarghese — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 17:57:18 GMT

data newdata;

set original;

if find( ISIN,'HK','i')>0;

run;

Re: keep if variable contains....

aarony — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 19:34:01 GMT

thanks for ur kind reply. 2 additional question:

1) how would u write the code just to parse the 1st 2 characters? what does 'i' mean?

2) how can write the code if i want to do HK and CN?

ie)

data newdata;

set original;

if find( ISIN,'HK','i')>0 & find(ISIN, 'CN', 'i')>0;

run;

is not working....

thank you!

Re: keep if variable contains....

Linlin — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 20:18:40 GMT

using substr:

if substr(your_variable,1,2) in ('HK','CN');

Re: keep if variable contains....

aarony — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 20:25:33 GMT

Thank you so much! this is very helpful.

just one more qucik question if u dont mind:

*if i do them seperately, keep the ones with HK/CN;

data sortedbase4;

set sortedbase2;

if countrycode NE 'CN' then delete;

run;

data sortedbase4;

set sortedbase2;

if countrycode NE 'HK' then delete;

run;

and then try to append them....by

data sortbase3;

update sortedbase3 sortbase4;

by countrycode;

run;

i get an error. could u shed some light? thank you!!

Re: keep if variable contains....

Tom — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 20:55:09 GMT

You have a typo in your dataset names such that you are created SORTEDBASE4 twice and not creating SORTEDBASE3.

You want to use a SET statement instead of an UPDATE. UPDATE is used to apply transactions to a master dataset.

Re: keep if variable contains....

JVarghese — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 00:40:22 GMT

if find( ISIN,'HK','i')>0 & find(ISIN, 'CN', 'i')>0;

Replace & with OR in your code, you'll get it right!

'i' is optional and it means to ignore the case of the string. Means whether HK or CN is in lower or upper case, that'll work irrespective of the case.