topic Search variable for specified text and return flag in SAS Health and Life Sciences

Search variable for specified text and return flag

WAL83 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:36:46 GMT

Is there a way in SAS to search for specific text in a variable and if found set a flag to 1. I am currently trying to determine if records in my dataset contain the text "TBI Screening". I can do this in MS Access with criteria [Like "*TBI Screening*"] and it works. Just wondering if you can do similar in SAS. The variable used in the search is called note and can contain up to 32000+ characters. Thanks.

Re: Search variable for specified text and return flag

Olivier — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:02:35 GMT

Check the INDEX, INDEXW and (more flexible but more complicated to write) PRXMATCH functions.
They all return a positive number when the string is found, else a zero. So you can build :
[pre]
flag = (INDEX(note, "TBI Screening") > 0) ;
[/pre]
This FLAG variable will be 1 or 0.

Re: Search variable for specified text and return flag

WAL83 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:50:09 GMT

Thanks for the info. I was out of town or would have gotten back sooner.