Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable

djbateman — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 13:02:16 GMT

I have a list of lab values in a character variable, and I need to store all the numeric values in a numeric variable. I thought I had it made when I found the NOTDIGIT() function. That works great for integer data, but then I realized that I am dealing with decimal and negative values. Is there a way to detect just these characters? I know I could just use INPUT(). That would convert any number-like value to numeric, but for all the character values, I would be left with a lot of ugly notes filling up my log (NOTE: Invalid argument to function INPUT at line XXX column YYY.).

I have some example data below. Is there away to get LABVAL to the NUMLAB and CHARLAB, respectively, as I have them?

LABVAL	NUMLAB	CHARLAB
7	7
NEG		NEG
-3	-3
+		+
2-4		2-4
1.5	1.5
2+		2+
98.6	98.6
12.773	12.773
YELLOW		YELLOW
< 2.5		< 2.5

Re: Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable

Astounding — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 13:11:53 GMT

The easiest way would be to suppress all the usgly messages about invalid data:

numlab = input(labval, ??12.);

Re: Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable

djbateman — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 13:22:11 GMT

I was never aware of the ? and ?? format modifier until now. Thank you so much!

topic Re: Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable in SAS Programming

Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable

Re: Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable

Re: Pulling Out Numeric Values from a Character Variable