topic Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter in SAS Programming

Count numeric values in macro parameter

Ujjawal — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 18:54:49 GMT

I am trying to calculate the number of numeric values in a macro parameter.

The code below works for character strings-

%let x = A B C;

%let n = %SYSFUNC(COUNTW(&x));

The code below does not work for numeric values-

%let x = 10 20 50;

%let n = %SYSFUNC(COUNT(&x));

I know COUNT does not work like this. Which function i can use to solve it?

Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter

Astounding — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:01:00 GMT

For your example, you can still use COUNTW.

Do you have more complex situations, such as:

%let x = 20 abc 50 A1;

If so, what would you like the result to be?

Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter

Ujjawal — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:35:51 GMT

%let x = 20 abc 50 A1;

It should return 2 since two values are numeric.

Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter

Astounding — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:36:20 GMT

Counting numeric vs. character separately is much harder.

But COUNTW will work with a list of numeric values. There must be some other problem. You can always post the code that gives you a blank.

Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter

ballardw — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 21:14:05 GMT

Probably misunderstanding how COUNT works. Count counts the number of times a substring appears in a string.

Count("xyxzxb 123","x") would return 3 times that X appears in the string.

%let x= 1,2,3;

%let count=%sysfunc(n(x)); would give you count but the list would have to be comma separated which in general is a suboptimal choice with macro variables and fails miserably if any nonnumeric noncomma characters are encountered.

Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter

Ksharp — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 01:49:33 GMT

How about this :

%macro count_digit(t=);
%local temp count;
%let count=0;
 %do i=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&t));
  %let temp=%scan(&t,&i);
  %if %datatyp(&temp)=NUMERIC %then %do; 
   %let count=%eval(&count+1); 
  %end;
 %end;
&count 
%mend;



%let x = 20 abc 50 A1;
%let n = %count_digit(t=&x);

%put &n;

Re: Count numeric values in macro parameter

FreelanceReinh — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 13:48:48 GMT

Great suggestion from @Ksharp (as always). The %DATATYP autocall macro would even recognize leading plus or minus signs, decimal points or scientific notation (...E-6) as valid parts of numeric values. If this more general type of numeric "words" could occur, however, the sets of delimiters used by both COUNTW and %SCAN should be restricted (e.g. reduced to blanks, as shown below), as otherwise plus and minus signs and decimal points would be regarded as delimiters:

countw(&t,%str( ))

%scan(&t,&i,%str( ))