topic Re: where is the documentation of " variabel in: ( .... )"? in SAS Programming

where is the documentation of " variabel in: ( .... )"?

JacobSimonsen — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:55:27 GMT

Hello everyone,

I just found in the documentation how the operator "=:" works. (much like the "like"-operator). I find this this veryy useful. I thereafter guessed that there might also exist a "in:" operator, which I found there indeed do exist. This allows users to search for the starting letters in several strings at same time. However, I can not find the description of the operator in the documentation - can anyone send a link, or is it only for experimental use?

Here an example:


data exclusion;
  format dx $8.;
  input dx $;
  if dx in: ('3912',  '429');
  cards;
3912 
3913
391218
x4290 
429
42901
;
run;

gives this dataset:

3912
391218
429
42901

Re: where is the documentation of " variabel in: ( .... )"?

Reeza — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:10:14 GMT

Operator is the same as =: but with OR between each item.

X =: 'val1' or X =: 'val2'

Also, not just IN, you can add it to >, <, etc, in fact:

You can add a colon ( : ) modifier to any of the operators to compare only a specified prefix of a character string. See Character Comparisons for details.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/68089/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p00iah2thp63bmn1lt20esag14lh.htm

Re: where is the documentation of " variabel in: ( .... )"?

RahulG — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:11:52 GMT

Go to this link

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/62955/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000780367.htm

Search for "Character Comparisons" on the web page. You would find documentation on =: operator

Re: where is the documentation of " variabel in: ( .... )"?

JacobSimonsen — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:30:47 GMT

Yes, that right. It says ":" can be added any modifyer to compare only the prefix.

I would wish I had knew that earlier, which would have made life much easier:-)