topic Re: sas function " !! " in SAS Programming

sas function " !! "

yym — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:58:01 GMT

Hi folks, has anyone used “!!”? what is the difference between !! and ||? The code below gave me the same result.

data t;

input a1 $ a2 $;

datalines;

ab ac

aa b

cc c

aa aa

;

run;

data tt;

set t;

var=a1!!a2;

var2=a1||a2;

run;

Difference between !! and ||

yym — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:52:51 GMT

Hi folks, has anyone used “!!”? what is the difference between !! and ||? The code below gave me the same result.

data t;

input a1 $ a2 $;

datalines;

ab ac

aa b

cc c

aa aa

;

run;

data tt;

set t;

var=a1!!a2;

var2=a1||a2;

run;

Re: sas function " !! "

SASKiwi — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:10:20 GMT

There is no difference - both are synonyms for doing character variable concatenations.

Re: sas function " !! "

SASBob — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:11:05 GMT

they have the same meaning "concatenation", so yes, you will get the same result. which one you use is up to you. I prefer the pipe symbol myself for concatenating character variables.

Re: Difference between !! and ||

LinusH — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:20:18 GMT

So...

It's all in the documentation...

There might be some difficulties to use || in a native Z/OS windows.

Re: sas function " !! "

ballardw — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 21:57:17 GMT

Once upon a time long long ago many keyboards and some of the multiple operating systems SAS runs on did not have the pipe character available. Hence use of ! instead of |.

Re: sas function " !! "

Reeza — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 00:33:52 GMT

The table at the bottom of this page does a good job of summarizing the operators:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/62955/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000780367.htm

Re: Difference between !! and ||

dkb — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 01:26:34 GMT

This is an exact duplicate of https://communities.sas.com/t5/General-SAS-Programming/sas-function-quot-quot/m-p/237247

It's not usually a good idea to start off multiple identical threads, because it makes it difficult for everyone including yourself to keep track of what's been suggested.

Re: sas function " !! "

RW9 — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:45:01 GMT

Also, one other thing to note is that with later versions of SAS there have been several concatenation functions added which make code both more readble, shorter, and add extra functionality (such as add a delimiter or use arrays). In most cases I would use those rather than the pipe or !, however there is still uses for them.

CAT

CATS

CATT

CATX

etc.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lefunctionsref/63354/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n1e21rr6al5m2nn19r1fat5qxwrt.htm

Re: Difference between !! and ||

yym — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:03:16 GMT

it is my first time to post here and not familiar with different sections of the community. I was not able to find the original post so re-posted it. sorry for the duplicate

Re: Difference between !! and ||

RW9 — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:43:52 GMT

Several people have already answered that for you, there is no difference. My post was an addendum to that to point out that functions are available to help readability and add additional functionality.