topic How to remove specific character from a string value. in SAS Programming

How to remove specific character from a string value.

PC7 — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:43:49 GMT

While Import excel file using Proc Import for few subject# ID I am getting some specific character value. Example below.

"
3-158-021" Expecting Subject id should be: 3-158-021 (9 characters)

The below SAS code I have used however, it is not working. any help would be appreciated.

data Keosys_vdr2;
	length SubjectNumber $150;
	set Keosys_vdr1 (firstobs=2);
	subjectnumber=strip(compress(Subject,'"'));
	*subjectnumber1=prxchange('s/\"//',-1,subjectnumber);
	keep SiteNumber subjectnumber subjectnumber1 Current_Status;
run;

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

PaigeMiller — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:27:13 GMT

It's not really clear to me what the data actually is here:

"
3-158-021"

Is there a carriage return/end of line character in your data?

This works for me

data want;
    subject='"
3-158-021" ';
    want = compress(subject,'"');
run;

From now on, please help us help you. Please don't say "it is not working" and provide no other information. Please, from now on, do provide the incorrect results that you are getting or the log with errors in it.

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

FreelanceReinh — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:55:38 GMT

Hello @PC7,

Maybe it's easier to specify the characters to be kept in the subject ID, e.g., digits and hyphens (cf. the COMPRESS function documentation):

subjectnumber=compress(Subject,'-','kd');

Or display one of the strings in $HEX. format to find out exactly what characters need to be removed. Here's an example where those double quotes are in fact curly quotes:

data _null_;
Subject='“3-158-021”';
put Subject $hex.;
run;

Result in the log:

93332D3135382D30323194

So this would remove them:

subjectnumber=compress(Subject,'9394'x);

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

PaigeMiller — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:01:17 GMT

Excellent idea, @FreelanceReinh

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

Tom — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:18:32 GMT

If your compress function call

subjectnumber=strip(compress(Subject,'"'));

does not remove the character, then you specified the wrong character in the call.

So look at what character is actually in your data. Display it using the $HEX format. Once you find out what character it is then use a hex literal in the code. If you are running with ENCODING=UTF-8 and the character is one that uses multiple bytes (basically one that is not between a space and an tilde ) then use KCOMPRESS() instead.

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

Ksharp — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 02:18:32 GMT

You could use DEQUOTE() to get rid of quote around this string:

Subject=dequote(Subject);

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

PC7 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 05:08:10 GMT

It's because carriage return, I was not getting expected outcome. I tried with below code. Getting expected results. thank you.

	subjectnumber=compress(Subject,'0D0A'x);

Re: How to remove specific character from a string value.

PC7 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 05:12:03 GMT

Hi Ksharp,

I tried with DQUOTE function, still I was getting same results. I think it's because of carriage return. When I tried the below code, Geeting expected outcome.

	subjectnumber=compress(Subject,'0D0A'x);