How to differentiate a column value is a null or blank?

[deleted_user]

Hi guys,

If I have a column that accept null value, how can I check whether the column is a null or is a blank(' ')?

Is there a function for it?

Thanks

Yours Sincerely,
helphelp

[LinusH]

I assume this is a char column.
In SAS, blank means MISSING (aka NULL), which is different compared to how most RDBMS work. If your data does not reside in SAS table, you could might use SQL pass-thru to accomplish this.
/Linus

[sfleming]

There is also a MISSING() function in the datastep. It accepts both numeric and character variables. They syntax to check whether a variable called VAR1 has a missing value would be:

if missing(VAR1) then ...

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
This documentation topic contains some useful information. Partly it depends on whether you are accessing relational database data or other data and what -exactly- NULL means in that data format.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/acreldb/61890/HTML/default/a001924296.htm

cynthia