topic Re: How to replace a string in global variable? in SAS Procedures

How to replace a string in global variable?

Gregor — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 11:22:47 GMT

I would like to use the export procedure in order to create an excel with a time stamp, but proc export does not like the :.

So I define the global variable

%let zeitstempel = %SYSFUNC(DATE(), DDMMYYP10._at_%SYSFUNC(TIME(),TIME5.);

%put &zeitstempel.;

This works fine.

Now I try to replace the : by _

%let zs = %SYSFUNC(tranwrd(&zeitstempel.),":","_");

%put &zs.;

This gets ignored by sas.

Do I need to add quotation marks and get rid of them later?

Is there another way to achiveIs this?

Is there maybe another time format that I can set in order to avoid my problem?

Thanks

Gregor

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

RW9 — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 11:37:57 GMT

Hi,

I would recommend against having dates/times in filenames. For two reasons, time/date is not an easy thing to work with, and version control systems generally need the filename to stay the same.

If you continue though, the below will switch : for _:

data _null_;

call symput('DT',cats(put(date(),ddmmyyp10.),"_at_",tranwrd(put(time(),time5.),":","_")));

run;

%put &DT.;

Personally I wouldn't try to do this in %let statements. If you have to deal with parameters then put them in a datastep and call symput/execute the required output.

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Tom — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 11:43:34 GMT

The problem is the quotes. In macro code everything is a character strings so you do not need to put quotes around strings to distinguish them from numbers or variable names.

%let zs = %SYSFUNC(tranwrd(&zeitstempel.),:,_));

Message was edited by: Tom Abernathy Fixed missing right parenthesis.

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Gregor — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 12:34:47 GMT

This works perfectly. I need to export excels with time stamps for documentary reasons. The numbers I calculate here have an impact on the data I deliver to an external recipant.

Thanks a bunch.

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Gregor — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 12:37:38 GMT

This leads to ERROR: Expect close parenthesis after macro function not found.

Thanks a lot, anyway.

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Tom — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 12:38:37 GMT

Add the extra ) required because TRANWRD() function is wrapped inside of %SYSFUNC() call.

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Ksharp — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 13:31:01 GMT

customize date format , you can get any form of date.

proc format;

picture fmt

low-high='%0d.%0m.%Y_at_%0H_%0M' (datatype=datetime);

run;

%let zeitstempel = %SYSFUNC(DATETIME(), fmt.);

%put &zeitstempel.;

Xia Keshan

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Ksharp — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 13:35:30 GMT

customize date format , you can get any form of date.

proc format;

picture fmt

low-high='%0d.%0m.%Y_at_%0H_%0M' (datatype=datetime);

run;

%let zeitstempel = %SYSFUNC(DATETIME(), fmt.);

%put &zeitstempel.;

Xia Keshan

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

BOBSAS — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 19:07:00 GMT

/*The above step won't work becoz you didnt mask the quotes..So see below*/

%let zs = %SYSFUNC(tranwrd(&zeitstempel.,%str(:),%str(_)));

%put &zs.;

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

Tom — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 21:00:03 GMT

The problem is not that the quotes are not masked, but that the quotes are included in the string to find and so there is no match.

Also note that neither : or _ are macro triggers so there is no need to use %STR() to quote them.

Re: How to replace a string in global variable?

BOBSAS — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 23:50:18 GMT

Yeah. Exactly... Thanks Tom.

Simply we can write as below,

%let zs = %SYSFUNC(tranwrd(&zeitstempel.:,_));

%put &zs.;