topic Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output in SAS Enterprise Guide

Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

whs278 — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 21:17:37 GMT

When using regular expressions, is there a way to use regular expressions to find a variable that starts with a certain string pattern in the listing after running PROC CONTENTS?

I have tried both \<MTH and ^MTH to find the variable MTHGRDG07 in my dataset but neither works.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Bill

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

PaigeMiller — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 21:21:45 GMT

If you write the PROC CONTENTS output to a SAS data set (or use the equivalent dictionary table), searching is easily done via a WHERE statement, no regular expression needed (in this case).

proc contents noprint out=_contents_ data=mydataset;
run;

proc print data=_contents_(where=(upcase(name)='MTHGRDG07'));
run;

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

jklaverstijn — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 21:34:12 GMT

YTou can achieve that without proc contents. Query the dictionary tables or their views in SASHELP like this:

proc print data=sashelp.vcolumn(where=(libname='YOURLIB' and memname='YOURTABLE' and prxmatch('/^MTH/', name)));
run;

Wonder where the Ctrl-F comes into play. That would be a text editor specific question independent from the proc you run.

Hope this helps,

- Jan.

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

whs278 — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 23:12:01 GMT

I think I wasn't clear in my first post. I am having trouble with the regular expression search tool when looking for variables in the output. Maybe the picture below will help.

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

PaigeMiller — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:45:39 GMT

@whs278 wrote:

I think I wasn't clear in my first post. I am having trouble with the regular expression search tool when looking for variables in the output. Maybe the picture below will help.

No, your explanation is clear. We are telling you there are simpler ways to do this than searching through a listing with regular expressions or by using Ctrl-F.

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

Patrick — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 01:22:13 GMT

Try RegEx \bCYL

\b is for a word boundary, ^ is for beginning of the string.

Your string starts with blanks so the RegEx you've shown us can't match.

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

ed_sas_member — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 13:38:47 GMT

proc contents data=sashelp.cars out=want (where=(upcase(name) like 'CYL%'));
run;

Re: Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

whs278 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 14:51:04 GMT

Thank you for this answer.

I guess what was confusing me was that SAS considers each row as a separate string so ^9 would match the same row.