topic Re: proc sql escape character? in SAS Programming

proc sql escape character?

kjohnsonm — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 21:15:49 GMT

Hello all,

I see a few topics here on escape character but am not sure they work for proc sql or maybe I am doing somting wrong...

example string:

Y:\mydir\mysubdir\myfile.txt

Y:\mydir2\mysubdir\myfi%le.txt

proc sql;
create table list_of_maybe_bad as
select
        Path_File,
        length(Path_File) as lh_Path_File,
        trimn(Path_File) as Path_File1,  
/*...*/
from list_of_working
where upcase(Path_File) not like "D:\SOFTWARE\%"    /* Do not search our Software repostitory */
and Path_File like '%\%%'
;
quit;

In my case i need to return just the second file. I have tryied '%%%' '%\%%' '%/%%' TIA.

Re: proc sql escape character?

FreelanceReinh — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 21:37:58 GMT

According to the documentation, you can choose your own escape character (i.e. ideally a character which does definitely not occur in the strings you work with): If '^' was such a character, the WHERE condition

Path_File like '%^%%' escape '^'

would match any string which contains a percent sign.

Re: proc sql escape character?

kjohnsonm — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 22:01:30 GMT

I see I should have been looking up like... Thank you.