To read numeric values of a variable

[deleted_user]

Hi All,

I have a variable whose values are both numeric and charaacters.e.g., 14.2 MG/DL, 19.2 %, no result 12.13 mmol/l, etc... its a mixed of different units r values. My question is 'Is it possible to read only the numeric portion of these values ie. 14.2, 19.2 (if it is text mark as .) 12.13, etc....Will this work with substring & scan function.

It would b helpful if I can have the solution ASAP.
Thanks in advance.
Priya

[deleted_user]

While this question is not related to "Mathematical Optimization and Operations Research with SAS" and while there might be more elegant ways to solve your challenge you might want to use a combination of existing SAS functions to tackle it.
I understand that your orginial variable is a character string containing alphanumeric symbols. Your goal is to read the numeric part and convert it to a numeric variable. Your digit symbol is ".".
The following example might illustrate what you are looking for:
data test;
input string $ 1-22;
length num 8;
digit1=scan(string,1,".");
i=anydigit(digit1,1);
j=anydigit(digit1,-23);
str1=trim(left(substr(digit1,i,j)));
digit2=scan(string,-1,".");
i=anydigit(digit2,1);
j=anydigit(digit2,-23);
str2=trim(left(substr(digit2,i,j)));
all=compress(str1||"."||str2);
num=all;
keep string num;
cards;
14.2 MG/DL
19.2 %
no result 12.13 mmol/l
run;

[deleted_user]

if you can use a data step, put the variable into the _infile_ buffer and then you have all the capabilities and flexibility of "input" statements to parse the text.
A paper given on this technique in an earlier SUGI "More _Infile_ Magic" http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi28/086-28.pdf.

PeterC