Using CTRL-F and Regular Expressions to find variable in Proc Contents Output

[whs278]

When using regular expressions, is there a way to use regular expressions to find a variable that starts with a certain string pattern in the listing after running PROC CONTENTS?

I have tried both \<MTH and ^MTH to find the variable MTHGRDG07 in my dataset but neither works.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Bill

[PaigeMiller]

If you write the PROC CONTENTS output to a SAS data set (or use the equivalent dictionary table), searching is easily done via a WHERE statement, no regular expression needed (in this case).

proc contents noprint out=_contents_ data=mydataset;
run;

proc print data=_contents_(where=(upcase(name)='MTHGRDG07'));
run;

[jklaverstijn]

YTou can achieve that without proc contents. Query the dictionary tables or their views in SASHELP like this:

proc print data=sashelp.vcolumn(where=(libname='YOURLIB' and memname='YOURTABLE' and prxmatch('/^MTH/', name)));
run;

Wonder where the Ctrl-F comes into play. That would be a text editor specific question independent from the proc you run.

Hope this helps,

- Jan.

[whs278]

I think I wasn't clear in my first post.  I am having trouble with the regular expression search tool when looking for variables in the output.  Maybe the picture below will help.

[PaigeMiller]

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@whs278 wrote:

I think I wasn't clear in my first post.  I am having trouble with the regular expression search tool when looking for variables in the output.  Maybe the picture below will help.

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No, your explanation is clear. We are telling you there are simpler ways to do this than searching through a listing with regular expressions or by using Ctrl-F.

[Patrick · Accepted solution]

Try RegEx \bCYL

\b is for a word boundary, ^ is for beginning of the string.

Your string starts with blanks so the RegEx you've shown us can't match.

[whs278]

Thank you for this answer.

I guess what was confusing me was that SAS considers each row as a separate string so ^9 would match the same row.

[ed_sas_member]

proc contents data=sashelp.cars out=want (where=(upcase(name) like 'CYL%'));
run;