topic Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable? in SAS Programming

List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

chouchou — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 02:21:37 GMT

Hi guys,

By using findw function, only one word can be found.

FINDW(string, word, chars, modifiers <, startpos>)

what function can help me find more than 2 words?

Thank you in advance.

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

Patrick — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 03:00:30 GMT

countw() if it's just about finding strings with more than 2 words.

find() if you're looking for a sub-string made up of 2 specific words.

A regular expression using prxmatch() for more complex text patterns.

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

Tom — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 05:31:33 GMT

Depends what you mean. If you want to search for a "word" that contains a space then it works just fine.

3587 data have ;

3588 str='ONE TWO THREE FOUR';

3589 x=findw(str,'TWO THREE');

3590 put x=;

3591 run;

x=5

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

RW9 — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 08:22:45 GMT

If its just two words separated by a space then my suggestion would be index, tiny fraction faster and less code:

data have ;

str='ONE TWO THREE FOUR';

x=index(str,' ');

put x=;

run;

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

chouchou — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:11:27 GMT

Sorry, I didn't make my question clear.

I'm not looking for a substring with 2 words, but 2 or more substrings with 1 or more words.

For example, I want to search obs which contain the word of Patient and antibiotics in the variable Comment and obs which contain the word of patient and high stress in the variable Comment. Which function should I use?

Thank you so much!

comment

1	001	Mayo Clinic	10/21/2006	120	78	7	Patient has had a persistent cough for 3 weeks
2	003	HMC	09/01/2006	166	58	8	Patient placed on beta-blockers on 7/1/2006
3	002	Mayo Clinic	10/01/2006	210	68	9	Patient has been on antibiotics for 10 days
4	004	HMC	11/11/2006	288	88	9	Patient advised to lose some weight
5	007	Mayo Clinic	05/01/2006	180	54	7	This patient is always under high stress
6	050	HMC	07/06/2006	199	60	123	Refer this patient to mental health for evaluation

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

chouchou — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:12:43 GMT

Sorry, I didn't make my question clear.

I'm not looking for a substring with 2 words, but 2 or more substrings with 1 or more words.

Thank you so much!

comment

Patient has had a persistent cough for 3 weeks

Patient placed on beta-blockers on 7/1/2006

Patient has been on antibiotics for 10 days

Patient advised to lose some weight

This patient is always under high stress

Refer this patient to mental health for evaluation

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

Tom — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:16:10 GMT

Just use normal boolean logic.

data want ;

set have ;

if indexw(upcase(comment),'PATIENT')

and indexw(upcase(comment,'ANTIBIOTICS')

;

run;

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

RW9 — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:20:14 GMT

Well, you can try index:

if index(comment,"Patient")>0 and index(comment,"antibiotics")>0 then ...

You will find it cumbersome if you have lots of different matches to make though. You could also use regular expressions to the same effect.

You could look at putting your matches in a datastep then generating the code:

data matches;

matcha="Patient"; matchb="antibiotics"; output;

run;

data _null_;

set matches end=last;

if _n_=1 then call execute('data want; set have;');

call execute(' if index(comment,"'||strip(matcha)||'")>0 and index(comment,"'||strip(matchb)||'" then found=1;');

if last then call execute(';run;');

run;

Re: List all obs in a data set where more than 2 words is in a variable?

chouchou — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:36:06 GMT

Thank you for letting me know prxmatch(). It do search certain Patterns, but it seems can not search two substrings according to my learning just acquired from SAS(R) 9.3 Functions and CALL Routines: Reference