String = A Math B Cook V Deep .Is there a way to get the output ABV using Compress function?

[animesh123]

String = A Math B Cook V Deep .

Is there a way to get the output ABV using Compress function.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Not, but a PRX function might do it (search for a capital character surrounded by blanks).

[Tom · Accepted solution]

No. 

That is NOT what COMPRESS() does.  It removes individual characters. So to get that result using COMPRESS() you would have to remove any character that wasn't A,B or V. Which would work for that one example, but I doubt it would work for other strings you might have.

If the pattern is single letter followed by single word then use SCAN() function in a loop.

data test;
   String = 'A Math B Cook V Deep';
   length next_word new_string $10 ;
   do i=1 by 2 until(next_word=' ');
     next_word=scan(string,i,' ');
     new_string=cats(new_string,next_word);
   end;
   drop i next_word;
run;

If the pattern is more complex 'D Earth Science E Chemistry' then you will need something more complicated.

If the goal is to find single uppercase letters then then perhaps something like:

data test;
   String = 'A Math B Cook V Deep';
   length next_word new_string $10 ;
   do i=1 to countw(string,' ');
     next_word=scan(string,i,' ');
     if length(next_word)=1 and 'A' <= next_word <= 'Z' then
       new_string=cats(new_string,next_word)
     ;
   end;
   drop i next_word;
run;

If not then you will probably need to use regular expressions instead.  

So if the pattern is remove any word that is more than one character then try

data test;
   String = 'A Math B Cook V Deep';
   length new_string $10 ;
   new_string=compress(prxchange('s/[^ ]{2,}//',-1,string),' ');
run;