Concatinating data from on variable while adding special characters.

[Stretlow]

Hello!

I've come across a little predicament and require a little assistance.

I have a list of numbers in one variable i.e

12345

12345

12345

12345

12345

12345

What i want to do is put the whole list into 1 observation but place quotations around them and put "or" in between.

so the output observation using the example above would show as

"12345" or "12345" or "12345" or "12345" or "12345" or "12345"

Is this possible?

Many thanks in advance

Stret

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

Use the quote() and catx() functions:

data have;
input number;
cards;
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
12345
;
run;

data want;
length result $100;
do until (eof);
  set have end=eof;
  result = catx(' or ',result,quote(put(number,5.)));
end;
drop number;
run;

[Stretlow]

Perfect!

Thank you Kind Sir.

[RW9]

I would wonder why?  Just syntactically, you be be better having an in() usable list rather than a list of "or"'s.  However if your using lists then far simpler to leave in a dataset an use that rather than try to code the mechanics of macro lists. 

[Stretlow]

---

@RW9 wrote:

I would wonder why?  Just syntactically, you be be better having an in() usable list rather than a list of "or"'s.  However if your using lists then far simpler to leave in a dataset an use that rather than try to code the mechanics of macro lists. 

---

Hi There.

Thank you for your input... the output of this is to be used for something very specific and where it requires it to be in that format.

Thank you though