topic Re: can i define double space as a separator in sas scan function in SAS Programming

can i define double space as a separator in sas scan function

LukaszStasiak — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:46 GMT

Hi,

I have a field that have two names in it, separated by two-spaces. how do I get only the second person from this field?

examples:

---1st person-------- -----2nd person------

LUKASZ STASIAK ANNA KAROWIEC

^1 space ^2

-----------1st person--------- ------------2nd person---------

ADAM KAPEC KOWALKI JURAND ZE SPYCHOWA

^1 ^1 ^2 ^1 ^1

this:

sender = scan(tpp_name, 1, " ");

receiver = scan(tpp_name, 2, " ");

treats the " " as <space separator><space separator> not <double space separator>. Is there any workaround for that?

Thanks

Lukasz

ballardw — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:00:42 GMT

Work around would likely involve the INDEX function which returns the start position of one string within another or zero if not found.

pos = index(tpp_name ,' ');

sender = substr(tpp_name ,1,pos-1);

receiver = substr(tpp_name ,pos+2);

should work but you should set the lengths of the sender and receiver varaibles before use.

Ksharp — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 02:46:59 GMT

Check modification 'M':

scan(tpp_name, 2, " ",'m');

LukaszStasiak — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 07:47:48 GMT

doesn't work as intended - it returns the second word from the string

Cynthia_sas — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:51:33 GMT

Hi:

Both FIND and INDEX worked for me.

cynthia