topic How to convert numeric values to characters without adding blanks in SAS Procedures

How to convert numeric values to characters without adding blanks

bncoxuk — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:47:57 GMT

Hello

I have a numeric variable x with values ranging from 1, 2 to 25. If I simply use: y = PUT(x, 2.) then there will be one blank space for those x with one single digit, because the PUT function makes the length of 2 for all y.

My question is: how can I make this conversion without adding any blanks to y?

How to convert numeric values to characters without adding blanks

art297 — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:00:06 GMT

If you were outputting the data to a text file, I'd suggest using the -l modifier. However, if you simply want to remove the extra spaces in the data itself, you could always just "strip" them. e.g.,

data test;

set sashelp.class;

if _n_ lt 6 then age=_n_;

age1char=put(age,2.);

age2char=strip(put(age,2.));

x=length(age1char);

y=length(age2char);

run;

How to convert numeric values to characters without adding blanks

data_null__ — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:22:29 GMT

You could also use -L with the PUT function. PUT(AGE,2.-L)

How to convert numeric values to characters without adding blanks

art297 — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:42:35 GMT

DN, Totally agree! But, I think it is really just a matter of preference as there is virtually NO performance difference between the two methods (at least when tested on 1.9 million records).