topic Re: Need to replace a space with Comma using %sysfunc in SAS Programming

Need to replace a space with Comma using %sysfunc

nxmogil — Wed, 10 May 2023 09:42:31 GMT

%let var = name age height;

%let var1 = %sysfunc(translate(&var, %str(), %str(,)));

%put &var1;

This is giving me output as name age height

but I need it as name ,age, height

Please correct where I am going wrong

Re: Need to replace a space with Comma using %sysfunc

Astounding — Wed, 10 May 2023 09:51:35 GMT

The TRANSLATE function expects the "to" value to come before the "from" value. So your expression translates the commas to blanks. Reverse the second and third parameters:

%let var1 = %sysfunc(translate(&var, %str(,), %str( )));

Be sure to add a blank in side the %str function. Nulls are different than blanks in macro language.

Re: Need to replace a space with Comma using %sysfunc

ballardw — Wed, 10 May 2023 09:53:21 GMT

Documentation. The second parameter is the TO value, the third is the From

%let var = name age height;

%let var1 = %sysfunc(translate(&var, %str(,), %str( )));

%put &var1;

@nxmogil wrote:

%let var = name age height;

%let var1 = %sysfunc(translate(&var, %str(), %str(,)));

%put &var1;

This is giving me output as name age height

but I need it as name ,age, height

Please correct where I am going wrong

Re: Need to replace a space with Comma using %sysfunc

nxmogil — Wed, 10 May 2023 10:07:36 GMT

Thank you

Re: Need to replace a space with Comma using %sysfunc

FreelanceReinh — Wed, 10 May 2023 10:47:48 GMT

@Astounding wrote:

So your expression translates the commas to blanks.

Worse still, it would interpret words delimited by commas in &var, if any, as separate function arguments and hence apply unwanted additional character replacements to the first word only ...