topic Re: Problem to convert character to numeric in SAS Programming

Problem to convert character to numeric

GuiVtzl — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:46:29 GMT

Hello everyone,

I am facing some trouble when I want to convert a character variable to a numeric one.

At start, my variable "A" is character such like :

---------

63,4 M€

14 866 M€

I used the compress function to have my have my variable appearing as following :

---------

119

63.4

14866

and so on...

Then I tried to convert it, I tried both input function and the "not rigourous" technique of multiply it by 1.

Each time I got the same error message saying :

Invalid numeric data, A='119.' , at line 16 column 6.

and my new variable B (supposedly numeric) has only missing values...

Could you help me try to figure this out please ?

Thanks a lot

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

mohamed_zaki — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:51:08 GMT

could you share

the complete log part or your code for the coversion

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

user24feb — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:58:46 GMT

Might work (you could check for better informats):

Data A;

Input X $20.;

X_Num=Input(Compress(Substr(X,1,Length(X)-2)),Numx20.);

Datalines;

63,4 M€

14 866 M€

;

Run;

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

RamKumar — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:00:13 GMT

Try similar kind of stuff in your code:

data B;

input x2 $ ;

datalines;

36.2

4.2

14899

;

run;

data c;

set B;

x3=input(x2,best8.);

run;

proc contents data=c;

run;

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

RaviKommuri — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:03:18 GMT

data have;

Input val $10.;

datalines;

119 M€

634 M€

14866 M€

;

DATA WANT;

SET HAVE;

REMOVE_CHAR = COMPRESS(VAL,'MA');

NUMONLY = INPUT(REMOVE_CHAR,5.);

I have used same COMPRESS and INPUT functions, but I didn't get any error

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

GuiVtzl — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:08:14 GMT

Thank you mohamed

Here is my code (with the *1 technique) :

data test ; set figures ;

CA = A*1;

run;

In fact, in the log, it seems sas sees the data as e.g. "119." because it reads it like that (in the log) : 119€

But the € doesn't appear in my table ! I even ran a compress function before to suppress the € !

I have a way to do what I want (I substr a string as (length(myvariable)-1) and then *1) but it is not very good.

So if you have a solution to handle that invisible € sign, it would be great !

Thanks

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

mohamed_zaki — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:52:15 GMT

It look like your data set examples have problem,

---------

63,4 M€

14 866 M€

does it contain spaces and the currency spaced from the value.

Does your data look like this? Or please give well typed sample of your dataset?

Re: Problem to convert character to numeric

nravi — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 05:15:33 GMT

Try this..

data a;

input x $20.;

datalines;

63,4 M€

14 866 M€

;

run;

data b;

set a;

y=input(compress(x,'123456789','k'),8.);

run;