Replace remainder of string from shifting starting point

[Jeff_DOC]

I hope someone can give me an assist here.

I have text data in one variable that varies in length. The field begins with a name and contains the word "ZIP" somewhere in the string. I need to find the occurrence of "ZIP" and remove all text after that occurrence to the end of the string.

Is there anyone who could point me in the right direction?

Thank you very much.

Data Have

John M. Smith ZIP 99999 any town any city

Mary M. Smith any town any city ZIP 88888 some other text

Bill Murray title book ZIP

Data Want:

John M. Smith

Mary M. Smith

Bill Murray

[ballardw]

data want;

     set have;

     string = substr(string,1,(indexw(string,'ZIP')));

run;

Where String is the name of your variable with the text. Note that the search is case sensitive, if you have values of Zip or zip they won't match.

[Jeff_DOC]

This mostly works. However, what I end up with is:

John M. Smith Z

Mary M. Smith Z

Bill Murray Z

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

,(indexw(string,'ZIP')-1

[Jeff_DOC]

Thank you very, very much. That works perfectly.

Jeff