Separate Number and characters

[SASPhile]

A variable has mix of numbers and characters. I would want to separate numbers and characters into two variables:

Raw Variable

2-5 TIMES IN WEEK

4-NORMAL

2018-09-27 Last Visit

4 - severe problems walking

Raw Variable	Character_Var	Numeric_Var
2-5 TIMES IN WEEK	2-5 TIMES IN WEEK
4-NORMAL                                    NORMAL	4
2018-09-27 Last Visit	2018-09-27 Last Visit
4 - severe problems walking	severe problems walking	4

I tried this anydigit(substr(Raw_Variable ,1,1))>0 and substr(Raw_Variable ,2,1)='-'  to separate out ,but did not seem to handle properly all the cases. Any help is appreciated

[Patrick]

I'd really appreciate if you could post your sample data in the form of a working SAS datastep as done below. I consider this a form of courtesy to the people wanting to help you (so they don't have to do it for you).

data have;
  input string $30.;
  datalines;
2-5 TIMES IN WEEK
4-NORMAL
2018-09-27 Last Visit
4 - severe problems walking
;

As for your question: There is something off with your 3rd line in the desired result. String "NORMAL" is in a separate column without heading. Can you please fix or explain further?

Raw Variable	Character_Var	Numeric_Var
2-5 TIMES IN WEEK	2-5 TIMES IN WEEK
4-NORMAL                                    NORMAL	4
2018-09-27 Last Visit	2018-09-27 Last Visit
4 - severe problems walking	severe problems walking	4

[SASPhile]

NORMAL to goes to Character_Var column. Thanks for pointing it out!

[Tom]

VERIRY() might be a useful function for you.

data have;
  input string $30.;
  datalines;
2-5 TIMES IN WEEK
4-NORMAL
2018-09-27 Last Visit
4 - severe problems walking
;

data want ;
  set have ;
  loc=verify(string,'0123456789-. ');
  length numpart rest $30;
  numpart=substrn(string,1,loc-1);
  rest=substrn(string,loc);
run;
proc print;
run;

Obs    string                         loc    numpart       rest

 1     2-5 TIMES IN WEEK                5    2-5           TIMES IN WEEK
 2     4-NORMAL                         3    4-            NORMAL
 3     2018-09-27 Last Visit           12    2018-09-27    Last Visit
 4     4 - severe problems walking      5    4 -           severe problems walking

[SASPhile]

Hi Tom,

 Its only the second and foruth record that needs parsing.

[Tom]

---

@SASPhile wrote:

Hi Tom,

 Its only the second and foruth record that needs parsing.

---

To not find those two then do not include the hyphen as one of the valid characters in the VERIFY() call.

But  can you  have negative values like: -123?  Are you only looking for integers?  What about values like 1.5 ?  How about scientific notation, 1.2E23 ? What about percentages like:  10%?  What commas separating thousands groups like: 1,234?

Do you want try converting the value to an actual number?  Try using the INPUT() function.  What informat to want to use?