topic Re: padding blanks on variable values in SAS Enterprise Guide

padding blanks on variable values

learner_sas — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:09:02 GMT

Hello All,

I have a character variable which has values of different length . I want to make all of them of same length. I used

if length(x_var) = 3 then x_new_var = x_var||" ";

else if ....4 then ...;

I but the original length is not changing. I am wondering if any of you can help.

Ram

Re: padding blanks on variable values

Doc_Duke — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:13:58 GMT

Ram,

I think that this is just a definition problem. All character variables in SAS are fixed length. The LENGTH function measures the number of characters, from the left, to the last non-blank character on the right. Therefore, your x_var and x_new_var would both show as having the same LENGTH when you use that function.

Doc Muhlbaier

Duke

Re: padding blanks on variable values

learner_sas — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:21:12 GMT

Thanks Doc@duke,

I need to padd blank when a variable value is not equal to length of 5. Do you think I can safely assume that length of variable is 5 if i define length of the variable in the beginning of the statement as 5 regardless of the length given by length function.

Re: padding blanks on variable values

Astounding — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:25:43 GMT

To speed up your learning of SAS, think about how you could test this for yourself. For example, you could code:

data test;

length a $ 5;

a='ABC';

newvar = a || '*';

put newvar=;

run;

Good luck.

Re: padding blanks on variable values

Haikuo — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:36:42 GMT

Many are very experienced and skilled in programming, But you are the best instructor on the forum!

Haikuo

Re: padding blanks on variable values

learner_sas — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:52:44 GMT

Hello Astounding,

I used your dataset but my problem still persists.

14 GOPTIONS ACCESSIBLE;

15 data test;

16 length a $ 5;

17 a='ABC';

18 newvar = a || '*';

19 newvar1 = a||' ';

20 put newvar:'end';

21 put a :'end';

22 put newvar1:'end' ;

23 run;

ABC * end

ABC end

when I did put statement why both of the ABC's(a and newvar1) has same length considering i added a blank on newvar1. Is there any way to achieve right padding on newvar1 with one more blank.I re run the process by removing length statement still I had same output.

Thanks,

Ram Rimal

Re: padding blanks on variable values

Astounding — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:05:00 GMT

Ram,

You did actually add a blank. You could see this by trying:

newvar2 = newvar1 || '*';

put newvar;

put newvar2;

The problem is that the PUT statement doesn't write out all the blanks. By default, it writes all the nonblank characters, and then leaves a single blank following.

What is your final objective here? If you would like to write a report that contains blanks, it's easy:

put @1 a @7 'end';

When all is said and done, what would you like to achieve?