topic Re: Extract a number somewhere in a string in SAS Programming

Extract a number somewhere in a string

fabdu92 — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 17:00:19 GMT

Hi all,

I have a quite long string, with somewhere inside the string: a number, composed by a various number of digits.

I need to extract the complete number.

I am sure that on the right there is at least one character, on the left too.

All characters apart from the number are not digits.

Do you know how I can do it?

Thanks

Re: Extract a number somewhere in a string

anoopmohandas7 — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 17:24:34 GMT

Can you show us your data or if not replicate a dummy of it ?

Re: Extract a number somewhere in a string

ErikLund_Jensen — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 17:38:01 GMT

Many different methods. I find prxchange most useful for that:

data _null_;

length num $12;

str = 'ssfdfsf56789qeqeqd';

num = prxchange('s/(\D*)(\d*)(\D*)/$2/',-1,str);

put num=;

run;

Re: Extract a number somewhere in a string

ballardw — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 17:45:45 GMT

Does your data have date values along with the number string you are searching for?

How about identifiers that may include digits such as Highway 66, addresses, telephone numbers or similar?

Re: Extract a number somewhere in a string

FriedEgg — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 18:32:19 GMT

setting assurances for matching the whole string would be better, on the off change more that one string of numbers happens to occur in a row of the data.

num = prxchange('s/^\D+(\d+)\D+$/$1',1,str);

also, since OP states there is definitely at least one char to left and right, can use + instead of * to further validate expected input.

Re: Extract a number somewhere in a string

Astounding — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 18:46:39 GMT

Since you simply want all the digits, a suitably simple approach would be:

num = compress(long_string, , 'kd');

k = keep

d = digits