topic Re: substr function in SAS Programming

substr function

PrinceAde — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:16:59 GMT

Hi everyone, please I need clarification with how Substr functions works

data want;

set have;

if sub = "(112)1245674" then do;
code1= substr(sub, 2, 4);
code2 = substr(sub, 6);
end;

run;

I expect code1 variable to be 112, but it gave me 112);

while code1= substr(sub, 2, 3); gave 112.

any explanation as to why?

Re: substr function

andreas_lds — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:29:03 GMT

It always a good idea to have a look at the documentation when in doubt about the parameters of a function. The third argument of substr is the number of chars to extract.

Re: substr function

PrinceAde — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:40:26 GMT

Yes I did,

if sub = "(112)1245674"

I expect code1= substr(sub, 2, 4); to extract 112.

The first "(" is 1 the from there 2,4 should be 112.

So I'm not why it is generating 112).

Thanks.

Re: substr function

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:13:21 GMT

Why do you expect to get 3 characters when you tell the function to extract 4 characters?

Note that the second parameter is not a position, it is a length.

Re: substr function

PrinceAde — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:18:25 GMT

Oh. Now clear. I forgot the third argument is the no character specified in length.

Thanks a lot;