topic Re: removing trailing spaces from a date in SAS Programming

removing trailing spaces from a date

tgleghorn — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 12:50:58 GMT

I am trying to remove trailing spaces from a date so it can be used in a file name for an excel file. I have tried using strip, left(trim and it is not working

data _null_;
today=today();
format today yymmdd8.;
filedate1=(trim(compress(put(today,yymmdd10.),'-, '))-2);
filedate=strip(filedate1);
format filedate $8.;
call symput ('today',today);
call symput ('filedate',filedate);

run;
%put &today. &filedate.;

libname rh_list "&path.\Export_All_Records &filedate..xlsx";

This is the result:

Export_All_Records 20241111 .xlsx

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

quickbluefish — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:06:24 GMT

Try using call symputX instead of symput.

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

tgleghorn — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:08:35 GMT

I will give this a try. I did figure out what I was doing wrong. moved the format filedate $8 before my strip statement

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

tgleghorn — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:13:14 GMT

tried the symputx and it worked. using this.. less steps. Thank you so much.

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

ballardw — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:09:17 GMT

Better yet, use the right format to begin with. The YYMMDDXw. format allows you to specify the separator with common choices based on a different letter in the place of the X. With N meaning NO separator.

data _null_;
call symputx('filedate',put(today(),yymmddn8.));
run;

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

Tom — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:16:24 GMT

If you do have a macro variable with leading and/or trailing spaces then the simplest way to remove them is to just run another %LET statement.

%let filedate=&filedate;

But you should never use the ancient CALL SYMPUT() method unless you actually need to generate macro variables with leading and/or trailing spaces.

Its replacement, CALL SYMPUTX(), was released by SAS over 30 years ago in version 6 of SAS.

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

tgleghorn — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:19:20 GMT

Thank you... will use this 🙂

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

tgleghorn — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:19:39 GMT

sorry!!!

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

FreelanceReinh — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:47:44 GMT

@Tom wrote:

But you should never use the ancient CALL SYMPUT() method unless you actually need to generate macro variables with leading and/or trailing spaces.

Its replacement, CALL SYMPUTX(), was released by SAS over 30 years ago in version 6 of SAS.

Hi @Tom: I agree that CALL SYMPUTX has been around for decades, but as I remember it as a "newer" feature it can't be that old. Indeed, it is listed in "What's New in the Base SAS 9.0, 9.1, and 9.1.3 Language" and I don't see it in the list "Functions and CALL Routines" of the SAS v8 documentation. It might have been available earlier as an experimental feature, though.

Re: removing trailing spaces from a date

Tom — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 16:52:01 GMT

Thanks. So CALL SYMPUTX() is only 20+ years old. I suspect I got confused with another supplanted feature that still gets used in a lot of new code. The MISSOVER option of the INFILE statement. The TRUNCOVER option has been around since at least some release of version 6.