topic Re: How to Format Leading Zeros in SAS Procedures

How to Format Leading Zeros

TashaBee — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:41:11 GMT

I am working on a snippet where I am formatting SSN. In the past, the Z format worked, but it has not worked lately. I tried using picture (for example, picture ssfmt other = '999999999';), but that hasn't worked as well. I am getting an error that states that the format was not found or could not be loaded.

proc format;

picture ssfmt low-high = '999999999';

run;

ID starts of with a character of 20 length. Then I do the following:

length newid $9.;

newid =idnumber;

newssn = input(newid, ssfmt.);

Any pointers?

Thanks,

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

data_null__ — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:45:33 GMT

Why no use the SSN format.

data _null_; 
   ssn=000090201; 
   put ssn ssn.; 
   run; 

000-09-0201

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

TashaBee — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:56:46 GMT

Thanks for the reply, but I am getting the error that the format could not be found or loaded.

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

Astounding — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:00:19 GMT

Is it possible that your variable is character, but in previous applications it was numeric?

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

TashaBee — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:13:00 GMT

It is a character variable what I am using.

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

data_null__ — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:16:51 GMT

If it is character then perhaps you should read it (input function) into a numeric variable then apply SSN format to the new variable.

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

Astounding — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:24:17 GMT

As you noticed, SAS complains when you try to apply a numeric format (such as ssn. or z9.) to a character variable. Since your variable is defined as 20 characters long, you can replace it with the proper value using the tools that data_null_ suggested:

idnumber = put(input(left(idnumber),9.), ssn.);

If you want to keep IDNUMBER as is, you could always assign this value to a new variable instead.

Good luck.

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

TashaBee — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:45:27 GMT

Thank you! That worked and I did a compress to get rid of the hyphens.

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

Astounding — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:49:45 GMT

Ah, if you don't want the hyphens it's just slightly different:

idnumber = put(input(left(idnumber),9.), z9.);

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

TashaBee — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:04:19 GMT

Thank you! I'll never understand when Z works and when it doesn't.

Re: How to Format Leading Zeros

data_null__ — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:30:36 GMT

It works when the data is NUMERIC. Does not work for character data.