topic Re: How to a word in a character string in SAS Programming

How to find a word in a character string

knveraraju91 — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 12:54:07 GMT

Dear,

I need to find a word in character string and assign values to another variable. I have visit variable. I need to assign values to period variable.Please help. Thank

eg; if visit contains word 'Wk 4' then period=1;

else if visit contains word 'UNSCHEDULED' then period=2.

visit

Day 28&29 +/- 3 Wk 4

Day 27&28 +/- 3 Wk 4

UNSCHEDULED VISIT 1.01

UNSCHEDULED VISIT 2.01

Re: How to a word in a character string

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:23:36 GMT

Have a look at the index function.

Re: How to a word in a character string

Astounding — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:52:24 GMT

While INDEX is the right tool, it has to be used wisely. For example, this would be lazy:

if index('KWk 45', 'Wk 4') then period=1;

The INDEX function will find "Wk 4" and will set PERIOD to 1.

More careful use would append a blank at the beginning and end of both strings:

if index(' KWk 45 ', ' Wk 4 ') then period=1;

Now INDEX is searching for a 6-character string, and doesn't find it. Using your VISIT variable:

if index(' ' || visit || ' ', ' Wk 4 ') then period=1;

else if index(' ' || visit || ' ', ' UNSCHEDULED ') then period=2;