topic Re: delete if contains/where contains? in SAS Procedures

delete if contains/where contains?

grayab — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:43:23 GMT

Hello -

I need to delete observations from my dataset when the entry for a given variable contains a certain character (@). I want to keep all the other observations. This seems to require something between an if-then statement and a where contains statement. I can't seem to find any references to this situation. Can anyone suggest the best way to do this?

Thank you.

Re: delete if contains/where contains?

stat_sas — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:53:30 GMT

Try something like this

if findc(text,'(@)') then delete;

Re: delete if contains/where contains?

Peter_C — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 22:13:42 GMT

Or sql like

PROC SQL ;

DELETE FROM your.dataset

WHERE that_variable CONTAINS '@' ;

;

QUIT;

The contains keyword can be replaced with the symbol ? to make the syntax shorter (not neccessarily clearer)