topic Finding String in SAS Procedures

Finding String

ren2010 — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:19:44 GMT

Hello all,

I am a situation where i have dataset with two variables name and alias:

Name Alias
xxx_999_aa 999
vvv_156_bb 156

My requirement is to find the alias in the name,so as per below i need to find if 999 or 156 is present in names.I tried using the FIND function like the following;

data test;
set a;
x=find(name,alias);
if x > 0 then delete;
run;
but this does not seems working as the value of the x is getting assigned as 0.

Please help

Re: Finding String

Reeza — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:53:20 GMT

The alias might have trailing or leading blanks, and then you're searching for
' 999' or '999 ' rather than 999.

Try using the compress function on alias:

x=find(name, compress(alias));
y=find(name, alias);

Re: Finding String

Doc_Duke — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:56:41 GMT

without your log and contents it is hard to pinpoint. Some suggestions.

-- Make sure both variables are character.
-- Make sure the alias does not have either leading or trailing blanks in it (print alias with a hex format to see what SAS thinks is there).
-- You might try the code
x=find(name,trim(left(alias)));
to see if that helps.

Doc Muhlbaier
Duke

Re: Finding String

ren2010 — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 02:40:34 GMT

Thank you all