topic Re: Count number of blanks in a string in SAS Programming

Count number of blanks in a string

light — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 23:46:27 GMT

Hello!

I have a quick question I hope you can answer:

There is a string "The red car jumped over the bridge." How do I write a statement that counts the number of blanks in a string?

Thank you so much!

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

Miracle — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:01:16 GMT

this should do it.
http://support.sas.com/kb/35/208.html

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

light — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:02:46 GMT

I will try this! Thank you Wong!

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

Astounding — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:30:55 GMT

n_blanks = length(var) - length(compress(var));

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

Tom — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:42:22 GMT

In the past I always used

length(string)-length(compress(string,' '))

But now with new functions like COUNTC() you could also use

countc(trim(string),' ')

You need to be careful when counting spaces in variables because SAS stores all character variables as fixed length strings that are padded with spaces. So if you did this:

data _null_
  c1=countc("The red car jumped over the bridge.",' ');
  put c1=;
run;

You would get 6, but if you did this:

data _null_;
  length x $50;
  x="The red car jumped over the bridge.";
  c1=countc(x,' ');
  put c1=;
run;

You would get 21.

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

light — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 01:22:51 GMT

Hi Astounding,

Works great for leading blanks and blanks between words! I am also trying to count trailing blanks in a string too, if possible.

Thank you so much 🙂

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

light — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 01:45:55 GMT

Hi Tom,

Thank you greatly for variaty of solutions 🙂

The third one is my favorate, because it can count leading and trailing blanks too!

Best Wishes 🙂

Re: Count number of blanks in a string

RW9 — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 08:47:26 GMT

Hi,

For future reference, please mark the post of the person who correctly answered your question as the correct answer, not a reply to it that you have posted. This helps keep acurate answers below the questions, and gives some credit to the poster who answered the question. Also noted on the post "Sum digits of a string".