topic Re: Formatting Data in SAS Programming

Formatting Data

mlogan — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:14:59 GMT

Hi there,

I have a 11 caracter (Length 11, Format $11., Informat $11.) long text which is '83.0000000'.

I want to convert it as 083 (character type). Can someone help please.

83.0000000 should be 083

95.0000000 should be 095

100.000000 should be 100

I wrote the following code, but it still doesn't help.

DATA Have;
A='83.00000000';
RUN;

DATA Out;
SET Have;
A=INPUT(A,z3.);
RUN;

Thanks,

Re: Formatting Data

ballardw — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:22:16 GMT

A = substr(a,1,index(a,'.')-1);

Re: Formatting Data

Haris — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:29:25 GMT

You cannot change the format of the variable in DATA step. Your variable is text in both HAVE and OUT. Also, z3. is not useful as an informat. Try this:

data have;
a='83.00000000';
run;
data out;
set have;
b=input(a,3.);
format b z3.;
run;

Re: Formatting Data

mlogan — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:31:51 GMT

Hi ballardw,
Your code returns 83, 93, 100. and the length is still 11, but I want it like 083, 093, 100. Thanks,

Re: Formatting Data

mlogan — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:51:55 GMT

Thanks Haris,
It works, but the length is still 8, how can i minimize it to 3?

Re: Formatting Data

Haris — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:54:55 GMT

Don't know why the length would matter but here it is:

data out; length a 3.;
set have(rename=(a=OldA));
a=input(OldA,3.);
format a z3.;
drop OldA;
run;

I re-wrote it a bit to preserve your variable name A using RENAME in the SET statement.

Re: Formatting Data

Tom — Sat, 21 May 2016 16:36:44 GMT

SAS always stores numbers as floating point. So you can reduce the storage from 8 to 3 as long as you only have small integers.

But is sounds like you want to convert your 11 character string to a 3 character string. You can use a number as an intermediate step.

So if your original variable is named HAVE this will create a new variable named WANT that is length $3 and has the leading zeros.

want = put( input(have,11.) , Z3.) ;