topic Count the number of pipes within Macro in SAS Programming

Count the number of pipes within Macro

SASAna — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 02:03:58 GMT

Hi SAS Users,

I wanted some help with getting the count of pipes '|' of a macro variable.

%LET DLM_COUNT = COUNTC(&PLATFORM,') +1;

&PLATFORM has value like 'ABC|DEF|GHI|QWE'

So i am expecting to 4 in DLM_COUNT.

Thanks,

Ana

Re: Count the number of pipes within Macro

mkeintz — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 02:26:43 GMT

Countc is a regulare sas function, not a macro function. So it has to be called via %sysfunc;

Also, you seem to want to count WORDs, where | is the separator:

%let PLATFORM =ABC|DEF|GHI|QWE;

%LET DLM_COUNT = %sysfunc(COUNTW(&PLATFORM,|));

%put &=dlm_count;

Re: Count the number of pipes within Macro

Astounding — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 02:41:57 GMT

Modifying your attempt slightly:

%let dlm_count = %sysfunc(countc(&platform, |));

I can't test it right now, but it looks like it should work.

In retrospect, COUNTW counts the number of words using pipes as delimiters. COUNTC counts number of pipes. Either is possible, just pick the one that does what you need.

Re: Count the number of pipes within Macro

SASAna — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 03:21:56 GMT

Thanks much for the quick reply. It worked very well.