topic Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator in SAS Programming

alphabet and numeric using like operator

BrahmanandaRao — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 04:42:29 GMT

data ds;
input text $;
datalines;
abcll12
slff37
uyxiiz3
123
;
run;

proc sql;
select * from ds
where text like '%[a-z]%'  as alphabet and like '%[0-9]%' as numeric ;
quit;

I want to get alphabet and numeric from this data instead of compress function using like operator

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 06:43:50 GMT

Your code does not make any sense. Please show us the expected result from your example data.

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

andreas_lds — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 06:44:44 GMT

Please show the expected result, it is not clear what you want. And please explain why you don't want to use compress.

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

BrahmanandaRao — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 06:52:51 GMT

Alphabet	Numeric
abcll	12
slff	37
uyxiiz	3
123	123

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 07:02:07 GMT

So you want to create two new variables, one containing only numeric characters, the other the rest?

The proper tool for this is the COMPRESS function, as you already mentioned, so use it (Maxim 14).

The WHERE clause in SQL is for filtering observations, not for creating variables.

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 07:03:38 GMT

PS why do you have the digits "123" in alphabet in the last observation? There, the variable should be empty.

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

andreas_lds — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 07:40:07 GMT

And what do you expect if the original value is "a1b2c3"? Or is it 100% sure that you have one block of non-digits and another of only digits?

Re: alphabet and numeric using like operator

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 08:01:13 GMT

Also see Maxim 1: Read the Documentation:

LIKE Operator

The LIKE operator does not support regular expressions.