topic Re: Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space in SAS Programming

Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space

smackerz1988 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:46:18 GMT

Hello,

I basically have two values within a column that I need to add a space after a hyphen. Would a combination of find or regex expressions work here?.

data have;
input  SUBJID $ INVNAM :$30.; 
infile datalines dlm = '|';
datalines;
1001|Raman
1002|Rodgers
1003|Ekanayake-Bohlig
1004|Renczynska-Matysko
;
run;


data want;
input  SUBJID $ INVNAM :$30.; 
infile datalines dlm = '|';
datalines;
1001|Raman
1002|Rodgers
1003|Ekanayake- Bohlig
1004|Renczynska- Matysko
;
run;

Re: Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space

data_null__ — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:51:14 GMT

TRANWRD(source, target, replacement)

Required Arguments

source

specifies a character constant, variable, or expression that you want to translate.

target

specifies a character constant, variable, or expression that is searched for in source.

Requirement

The length for target must be greater than zero.

replacement

specifies a character constant, variable, or expression that replaces target. When the replacement string has a length of zero, TRANWRD uses a single blank instead.

Re: Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space

smackerz1988 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:52:53 GMT

But I want to add a space not replace the hyphen with a space

Re: Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space

mtnbikerjoshua — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:10:52 GMT

Hi @smackerz1988 ,

You can replace the hyphen with a hyphen followed by a space, like this:

tranwrd(invnam, "-", "- ")

A regex expression is unnecessary in this case, but the code would look like this:

prxchange('s/-/- /', 1, invnam)

If you had more complex requirements, such as add a space only if the hyphen is after the first word or only if the hyphen is not at the end of the string, a regex expression would be more appropriate.

I hope that clarifies what @data_null__ meant.

Joshua

Re: Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space

smackerz1988 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:43:22 GMT

Yes, it does thanks!

Re: Using PRXPARSE to find hyphen in string and insert a space

mtnbikerjoshua — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:15:30 GMT

You're welcome! Also, by the way, thank you for posting example data.
That always makes it much easier to answer a question.