Need help in finding PRX documentation?

[MarkWik]

I would like to learn PRX group of functions thoroughly and am in need of pointers to certain documentation with examples that starts and explains from the very basic to advanced regular expressions in sas. I have read the SAS documentation however I am unable to comprehend the concept to my satisfaction. Can somebody share plz?

Thanks so much in advance,

Mark

[Reeza]

Regular expressions are not a SAS concept, it originates with Perl and can be used in a ton of places, I think there’s even Excel adding or default options that use it now. 

The cheat sheet is a good day to day reference

https://support.sas.com/rnd/base/datastep/perl_regexp/regexp-tip-sheet.pdf

Maybe this site will help

https://regexr.com

[ChrisHemedinger]

And for SAS specifics, check out this paper by David Cassell: The Basics of the PRX functions.

[FreelanceReinh]

Hi @MarkWik,

In 2015 I was in a very similar situation. Eventually, I bought the e-book version of "Introduction to Regular Expressions in SAS®" by Matthew Windham and read the first three of its four chapters. I was a bit surprised that it doesn't cover all available metacharacters. Still, this book helped me familiarize myself with the more common ones as well as with the PRX functions and CALL routines.

However, I use regular expressions so rarely in my programs (more often in the Replace dialog box of the Enhanced Editor) that I usually need to look up the precise syntax again.