Parsing CamelCase

[dhrumil_patel]

Using SAS 9.3, I am trying to parse a variable, Vehicle, of auto names written (mostly) in camel case. For example, 

JeepGrand Cherokee

JeepRenegade

JeepWrangler

...other records not in camel case

Jeep Renegade

I'd like to define a new variable, Model, containing the model names of the vehicles. For the records separating make from model with a space, I have a solution using the findw function:

if findw(Vehicle, "Renegade") then Vehicle2 = "Renegade"

This does not work for the camel case records. One solution I have worked out is to use a combination of the scan and tranwrd function. 

if findw(strip(tranwrd(scan(Vehicle, 1, " "), "Jeep", " ")), "Wrangler") then Vehicle2 = "Wrangler"

This works because I have a small number of makes in the data set. But how could I generalize this parsing to a larger list of automakers? In general, can we specify "case" as a delimiter in any character functions? 

I appreciate any feed back anyone can provide.

Dhrumil Patel

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

There's going to be a PRX function that's much more efficient, but you can use the ANYUPPER()/SUBSTR() function. 

data want;
input details $32.;
x=anyupper(details, 2);
make=substr(details, 1, x-1);
model=substr(details, x);
cards;
JeepGrand Cherokee
JeepRenegade
JeepWrangler
;
run;

proc print data=want;run;

[JerryLeBreton]

Using PRX functions looks inviting but this can also be done simply with:

model =substr(vehicle, findc(vehicle, , 2, 'SU'));

[FreelanceReinh]

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@JerryLeBreton wrote:

Using PRX functions looks inviting but this can also be done simply with:

model =substr(vehicle, findc(vehicle, , 2, 'SU')); 

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Good idea. One could apply the LEFT function to the result in order to avoid discrepancies like 'Renegade' vs. ' Renegade'.

[dhrumil_patel]

Thanks Jerry. This also works and is compact!

A couple questions:

(1) Why do you have to start at the second character position?

(2) Does a blank argument for the charlist include all alphanumeric character? (Couldn't find this answer in the SAS Documentation of the findc function.)

Thank you again.

[JerryLeBreton]

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@dhrumil_patel wrote:

A couple questions:

(1) Why do you have to start at the second character position?

(2) Does a blank argument for the charlist include all alphanumeric character? (Couldn't find this answer in the SAS Documentation of the findc function.)

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If you start at the first character, the answer will include the Make of the vehicle.

And leaving the  charlist argument blank effectively means 'any character(s)'.  The modifiers U and S stipulate what to search for.  The doco for the FINDC  function is quite good.

@Oh, and use @FreelanceReinhard 's suggestion to wrap a LEFT function around the result to finish the job properly.