SAS Tip: Retrieving the First Character

SAS_Tipster — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 21:09:03 GMT

Have you ever needed to create a variable containing only the first character of a character variable? This DATA step shows four different ways to retrieve only the first character. Each new variable (A1, A2, A3, A4) contains only the letter 'F', however the lengths of these four variables are NOT all the same.

data one;
    name='Fred';
    a1 = substr(name,1,1);
    a2 = first(name);
    substr(a3,1,1) = name;
    length a4 $1;
    a4 = name; 
run;

This tip was originally published by Art Carpenter on sasCommunity.org.

Re: SAS Tip: Retrieving the First Character

Ksharp — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:47:10 GMT

One more function CHAR().

data one;
    name='Fred';
    a1 = char(name,1);
run;

topic SAS Tip: Retrieving the First Character in SAS Tips from the Community

SAS Tip: Retrieving the First Character

Re: SAS Tip: Retrieving the First Character