topic Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments in SAS Programming

The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 22:14:43 GMT

I am trying to use the SUBSTR function to parse out values in a string. There are 44 variables in my dataset that contain such strings. The strings are a maximum of 6 characters. Each value is 2 characters long. In other words, a value of 010101 has 3 distinct values (01, 01, 01).

I have this:

_400203 _400204 etc.

010001 000100

000001 0100

I want this:

VAR1 VAR2 VAR3 VAR4 VAR5 VAR6 VAR7 VAR8 VAR9 VAR10 VAR11

01 00 01 00 00 01 00 01 00 01 00

Ultimately, I want to create 3 new variables for each string:

IF VAR1="01" THEN NEW_VAR1=1; ELSE NEW_VAR1=0;
IF VAR2="01" THEN NEW_VAR2=1; ELSE NEW_VAR2=0;
IF VAR3="01" THEN NEW_VAR3=1; ELSE NEW_VAR3=0;

I can run the code successfully for 1 variable, but not for more than one. I receive the following error: "The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments".

I am no expert in arrays, or in SAS in general...

This is the code I'm using just to run a test using 2 variables (6 total values):

DATA want;
    SET have

ARRAY array_name (*) $ 2 VAR1-VAR6;
DO i = 1 to 5 by 2;
array_name(i) = substr(_400203-_400204, i, 2);
END; 

DROP 
_400203
_400204
i;
RUN;

This code works fine for one variable:

DATA want;
   SET have;

ARRAY array_name (*) $ 2 VAR1-VAR3;
DO i = 1 to 5 by 2;
array_name(i) = substr(_400203, i, 2);
END;

DROP 
_400203
i;
RUN;

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

FreelanceReinh — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 19:45:20 GMT

Hi @_maldini_,

Have you checked the documentation of the SUBSTR function? The first argument to the function "specifies a character constant, variable, or expression." So, there's no room for a variable list, unfortunately.

Also, an array named array_name cannot be referenced later by a different name such as answers.

I'm skeptical already about your code for one variable: If _400203='123456', VAR1 - VAR3 will receive the values '12', '23', '34', respectively, and not '12', '34', '56', as you might have intended. You may want to adapt the DO statement as follows:

do i=1 to 5 by 2;

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Astounding — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 19:51:26 GMT

First, a quick tip. If you have defined VAR1 as $2, you don't need the SUBSTR function. You could code:

var1 = _400203;

The big problem you have ias that you haven't created nearly enough variables. If VAR1 is to hold the first two characters of _400203, you can't reuse it to hold the first two characters of some other variables at the same time. You will have to devise a set of 3 names for each incoming variable. Once you have that approach in mind, arrays will be the key tool that processes many variables in exactly the same way.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:02:31 GMT

Sorry @FreelanceReinh My mistake on the array name. I corrected it in the original post.

What does the 5 represent here? Should it be 6 since there are 6 digits/characters in your example?

Thanks very much for your help.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:06:34 GMT

@Astounding

That is what I was trying to do w/ VAR1, VAR2, VAR3 for _400203 and then VAR4, VAR5, VAR6 for _400204.

Is there a better approach?

Thanks for the help!

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

FreelanceReinh — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:13:56 GMT

My suggestion with the DO statement focused on the SUBSTR function, whose second argument specifies the beginning character position of the substrings to be extracted. So, if you want to extract '12', '34' and '56' from the string '123456', those beginning character positions should be 1, 3 and 5. These are the values of the index variable of a DO loop from 1 to 5 with a step size of 2.

However, to assign these three substrings to array elements answers(1), answers(2), answers(3), the index of the array elements must be specified as follows:

answers((i+1)/2) = substr(_400203, i, 2);

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Reeza — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:25:43 GMT

Can you post a sample of what your data looks like and what you want the output to look like?

Several different cases would be ideal.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

ballardw — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 21:44:37 GMT

As a brief aside, this code

IF VAR1=01 THEN NEW_VAR1=1; ELSE NEW_VAR1=0;

since mentioning substr probably was intended to be

IF VAR1='01' THEN NEW_VAR1=1; ELSE NEW_VAR1=0;

You can get equivalent behavior with

New_Var1 = (Var1 = '01');

Since SAS assigns a numeric value of 1 to a true comparison and 0 to a false comparison.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:59:10 GMT

@Reeza Added to original post. Thanks!

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Reeza — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 21:10:07 GMT

Are you expecting each of those var on their own line? Or all on one line?

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 22:05:28 GMT

@Reeza I'm not sure I understand your question. Could you please clarify?

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Reeza — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 22:09:20 GMT

Would the output be a single row with 11 different variables

or multiple rows with 2 variables?

You've listed your output as Var01-Var11, but structured them as rows...

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 22:11:25 GMT

@Reeza Sorry. Yes, a single row with 11 different variables.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Ksharp — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 03:38:35 GMT

data have;
input _400203 $    _400204 $;
cards;
010001                    000100
000001                    0100
;
run;
data temp;
 set have;
 array x{*} $ _: ;
 do group=1 to dim(x);
  do i=1 to length(x{group}) by 2;
   temp=substr(x{group},i,2);output;
  end;
 end;
 keep group temp;
run;
proc sort data=temp; by group;run;
proc transpose data=temp out=want(drop=_:) prefix=var;
 var temp;
run;

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Astounding — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 14:01:09 GMT

I'd change the names to make them manageable later. Arrays is still a viable option:

data want;

set have;

array original {44} _400203 _400204 ....;

array new {44,3} $ 2 _400203_part1 - _400203_part3

_400204_part1 - _400204_part3

...;

do i=1 to 44;

do j=1 to 3;

new{i,j} = substr(original{i}, 2*j-1);

end;

run;

It's still not clear if you want to copy two characters from the original variable, or if you want to set flags based on what you find there. But there are (as usual) plenty of ways to do it in SAS.

Technically, the SUBSTR function with no third parameter copies all remaining characters. But since the new variables are only two characters long, the program saves just two characters in each.

Good luck.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 15:32:30 GMT

<It's still not clear if you want to copy two characters from the original variable,>

I want to copy 2 characters from the original variable.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Astounding — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 16:10:40 GMT

Great. Then I'll stick with the solution that I posted ... no changes required.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

_maldini_ — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:56:16 GMT

@Astounding This code is producing the desired result, but I'm getting a warning message: "NOTE: Invalid second argument to function SUBSTR at line 180 column 18."

What am I doing wrong here?

180 new{i,j} = substr(original{i}, 2*j-1);
181 end;
182 end;
183 run;

There are 57 variables, not 44 as previously mentioned.

DATA want;
58 SET have;
59 
60 array original {57}
61 _400201
62 _400202...;

118 
119 array new {57,3} $ 2
120 _400201_part1-_400201_part3
121 _400202_part1-_400202_part3...;
177 
178 do i=1 to 57;
179 do j=1 to 3;
180 new{i,j} = substr(original{i}, 2*j-1);
181 end;
182 end;
183 run;

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Astounding — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:02:39 GMT

That shouldn't happen. The only cause that comes to mind is that one of your 57 original variables is defined as having a length less than $5. In that case, it shouldn't really be on the list with the other variables.

Re: The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

Reeza — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:59:37 GMT

Do you get a single error or multiple errors? If you can, post the line mentioned in the log.