topic Re: Leading Space in SAS data set in SAS Enterprise Guide

Trailing Space in SAS data set

karan96 — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 12:03:45 GMT

Hi,
I have a data set with 1 variable and 3 inputs which is as follow:-

VarName

1) Jack

2) Alfred Crooks

3) Julia

I want to store "Jack" as "Jack " (One trailing space in the end) and rest of the inputs to remain as it is in sas data set. can this be done in SAS ? I have tried different function tranwrd, cat, || , also through if else condition but nothing worked. It would be great if anyone can guide me on this.

Thanks.

Re: Leading Space in SAS data set

ballardw — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 09:15:12 GMT

How do you know it "didn't work"?

By default most of the procedures creating output will not display a leading space.

And on potential issue is that depending on the assigned length of a variable if you attempt to add a leading space the result might not fit in allowed space for that defined variable.

Run this code;

data example;
   x='Jack';
   y=' '||x;
   z=cat(' ',x);
   ly=length(y);
   lz=length(z);
run;
/* look at defined length for x in the output*/
proc contents data=example;
run;

data example2;
   set example ;
   /* attempt to insert space in existing variable*/
   x=' '||x;
run;

If you print the Example data set you will see that the value for x is "Jack". In the second set print will only show "Jac" but opening the set in the table viewer you may be able to tell that there is a space and the K is no longer there because the "space" makes the value too long to fit in the 4 spaces.

Re: Leading Space in SAS data set

FreelanceReinh — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 10:50:16 GMT

Hi @karan96,

@karan96 wrote:

I want to store "Jack" as "Jack " (One leading space in the end)

What you describe is rather a trailing blank. If your character variable needs to accommodate a value like "Alfred Crooks" it must have a length of at least 13. Then an observation containing the name "Jack" will actually contain the string "Jack " with at least 9 (=13-4) trailing blanks -- assuming a traditional (fixed-width) character variable, not the newer VARCHAR data type.

Note that trailing blanks are ignored in character comparisons, e.g., the condition "Jack" = "Jack " is true. But in other situations like concatenating character values (e.g., name=firstname||lastname [not recommended]) or using certain character functions the trailing blanks must not be forgotten.

Re: Trailing Space in SAS data set

Tom — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 12:26:21 GMT

No.

SAS has two variable types. Floating point numbers and fixed length character strings.

To distinguish 'Jack ' from 'Jack' you will need to store extra information somehow. Either include something in the variable itself, like quotes or a delimiter or stop character.

data test;
  input string $40.;
cards;
"Jack "
Alfred Crooks
Julia
;

Or store the desired length in a separate variable.

data test;
  input length string $40.;
cards;
5  Jack 
13 Alfred Crooks
5  Julia
;

Re: Trailing Space in SAS data set

Sajid01 — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 19:44:45 GMT

Hello @karan96
You can have a trailing space but with single quote. Thus for Jack it will be 'Jack ' but not "Jack ".
The output will be like this. There is a trailing space at the end of each variable.

The code is

data test;
input Name  $40.;
datalines;
Jack
Alfred Crooks
Julia
;
run;

data test;
set test;
Name2="'"||strip(name)||" '";
run;
proc print;
run;