topic Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ? in SAS Programming

How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

bhanuprakash — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 06:52:11 GMT

Hi Team,

I am able to replace special characters with empty spaces in the text2 argument. However I am not able to achieve the same in the text3 argument. Can you please let us know how to use other functions/ variable names in the Perl regular expression?

data a;
input text $80.;
datalines;
The phone numberØ for Ed is (801)443-9876Ø but not until tonight.
He can be reached Øat (910)998-8762 Øtomorrow for testing purposesØ.
;
run;

data b;
set a;
text2=prxchange("s/Ø//", -1, text);
test3 = prxchange("s/byte(216)//", -1, text);
test4= byte(216);
run;

Thanks & Regards,

Bhanu Prakash Pala

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

sbxkoenk — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:05:08 GMT

I only use regular expressions for the real complex stuff.

You can get very far with these 3 SAS functions :

TRANSLATE Function
TRANSTRN Function
TRANWRD Function

Thanks,

Koen

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

bhanuprakash — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:10:38 GMT

Yes, I was aware that we can achieve using those functions. I wanted to use a regular expression to achieve the requirement.

Please suggest to me if there are any other ways in the regular expressions.

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

ChrisNZ — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:17:07 GMT

If special character means anything outside of the lower ascii characters (33 to 126, i.e. ! to ~), this might help:

VAR2 = prxchange('s/[^!-~]/ /', -1, VAR);

Be careful if using UTF8 encoding.

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

bhanuprakash — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:23:29 GMT

I wanted to replace blank if we have ASCII specifically characters (1-31,127-255) in the Text. I can’t type those characters manually.

Our program should work in dynamic way.

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

ChrisNZ — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:39:11 GMT

Same thing.

Another way to code that:

 VAR2 = prxchange('s/[^\x21-\x7E]/ /', -1, VAR);

 VAR2 = prxchange('s/[\x00-\x1F\x7F-\xFF]/ /',-1, VAR);

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

bhanuprakash — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:59:27 GMT

Thank you so much Chris.
This is exactly what I am expecting.
Where can I find the list to identify the HEX values(\x00-\x1F\x7F-\xFF) which you mentioned.

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

Patrick — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 08:23:17 GMT

@bhanuprakash Given that your RegEx actually removes characters without replacing them with a blank the compress() function might also do the job for you.

To be considered for using compress():

1. compress() will perform better than RegEx which might be relevant in case you're dealing with bigger data volumes

2. The SAS RegEx functions can only get used with single byte encoded data. If your data is multibyte encoded then consider using function kcompress() with the appropriate modifiers.

data a;
  input text $80.;
  datalines;
The phone numberØ for Ed is (801)443-9876Ø but not until tonight.
He can be reached Øat (910)998-8762 Øtomorrow for testing purposesØ.
;
run;

data b;
  set a;
  text2=prxchange("s/Ø//", -1, text);
  text3=prxchange('s/[\x01-\x1B\x7F-\xFF]//', -1, text);
  text4=compress(text,' ','knp');
run;

proc print data=b;
run;

And to find the hex values for ASCII values just Google for ASCII Table and you'll find what you need.

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

ChrisNZ — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 08:26:05 GMT

Any ASCII table will show the list of characters. Just search that.

Re: How to use the variable name or other function in Perl regular expression ?

sbxkoenk — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 13:17:46 GMT

Post-Factum, but may still be useful to you !

Transcoding: Understand, Troubleshoot, and Resolve a Most Mysterious SAS® Error
Posted 03-15-2021 09:43 AM | by imujulie
https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Global-Forum-Proceedings/Transcoding-Understand-Troubleshoot-and-Resolve-a-Most/ta-p/726296

Koen