Fuzzy Lookup?

[RandyW]

I am new to SAS EG and I am not familiar with the programming side, only the point and click interface. 

I have one column titled 'Name', and another column titled 'Name and Address' (sample attached). I need to determine if the name is contained in the name and address column.

What would you suggest is the best way to perform this action? In the query builder I tried creating a computed column with the contains operator and a second attempt with the scan function (which I thought was closest to a fuzzy lookup) but those did not work for me. 

Any thoughts or guidance is much appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[Reeza]

This is not a fuzzy lookup, you're looking for FIND or INDEX to search for a particular string instead. This assumes that comparisons are along a single row. If you need to compare the name from row 2 with the address/name from Row 1 that's a different problem.

This would be a calculated/computed column with the query builder, under Advanced Calculations most likely. You can use the INDEX or FIND function within the computed column builder.

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@RandyW wrote:

I am new to SAS EG and I am not familiar with the programming side, only the point and click interface. 

I have one column titled 'Name', and another column titled 'Name and Address' (sample attached). I need to determine if the name is contained in the name and address column.

What would you suggest is the best way to perform this action? In the query builder I tried creating a computed column with the contains operator and a second attempt with the scan function (which I thought was closest to a fuzzy lookup) but those did not work for me. 

Any thoughts or guidance is much appreciated! Thanks in advance!

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[Astounding · Accepted solution]

Another issue that may apply is the presence of trailing blanks.  It is possible that the first comparison locates the NAME, when the second one doesn't:

location = index(name_plus_address, strip(name));

location = index(name_plus_address, name);

The STRIP function removes leading and trailing blanks.  The second statement (omitting STRIP), might be searching for a longer string that includes the trailing blanks ... probably less than ideal.

[RandyW]

Thanks to all! The following worked best for my needs but the other suggestions were good options too!

location = index(name_plus_address, strip(name));

[SuryaKiran]

If you have mixed case then use FIND(Name_address,Name,'i')