topic Re: Creating Last First Mi from a single variable in SAS Procedures

Creating Last First Mi from a single variable

GreggB — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 19:53:54 GMT

The data I have (in one field):

Name

Doe, John M.

The data I want (in 3 fields):

Last First Mi

Doe John M

Re: Creating Last First Mi from a single variable

CTorres — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 20:01:35 GMT

Very simplistic but works if there are no composed names, prefixes, more than one initial, etc...:

data have;

name='Doe, John M';

last=scan(name,1);

first=scan(name,2);

Mi=scan(name,3);

run;

CTorres

Re: Creating Last First Mi from a single variable

GreggB — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 20:04:14 GMT

Simplistic works for me! Thanks.

Re: Creating Last First Mi from a single variable

dcruik — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 20:04:42 GMT

I'm not sure how dynamic you need the code to be, whether your Name field is consistent or not with the length of the Middle Initial and whether there are more than two names for the first name, but this code will help with your example you gave.

data have;

input name $25.;

datalines;

Doe, John M.

;

run;

data want;

set have;

format Last First $15. FirstMi $20. Mi $1;

Last=scan(Name,1,",");

FirstMi=scan(Name,2,",");

First=strip(scan(FirstMi,1," "));

Mi=compress(scan(FirstMi,2," "),".");

drop FirstMi;

run;

Re: Creating Last First Mi from a single variable

ballardw — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 20:58:13 GMT

Beware of two word last names such as Le Blank, Van Dorp and such.

You might want to run a word count to see if you have more than 3 words in the field to bring possible problems to your attention.