Need Correction on finding the first name

[u39734216]

Hi all,

I am working with data sets which have names like 

Nichols, KregFI
Reddy, RamanaBT

And I have to find the first name as Kreg and Ramana. pls, can anyone help me how to find it?
I was trying with this code SUBSTR(name,LENGTH(name,",")-1, -2); . but it was giving me an error.

[TarunKumar · Accepted solution]

data have;
input custname:$15.;
datalines;
Nichols,KregFI
Reddy,RamanaBT
;run;

data want;
set have;
first_name = substr(scan(custname,-1,','),1,length(scan(custname,-1,','))-2);
run;

[Kurt_Bremser]

If it's always two characters that need to be cut away, do this:

data have;
input name $30.;
datalines;
Nichols, KregFI
Reddy, RamanaBT
;

data want;
set have;
firstname = scan(substr(name,1,length(name)-2),2,',');
run;

proc print data=want noobs;
run;

Result:

     name          firstname

Nichols, KregFI     Kreg    
Reddy, RamanaBT     Ramana  

[u39734216]

Thanks.