How to get rid of padded zeros when converting from Character to numeric

[pp2014]

I have character field  Var1 = "00001234" I convert the above value from character to numeric as follows: data a; format Var1_new 11.; Var1 = "00001234"; Var1_New = Var1 *1; run; Above example does convert to numeric but keeps Zeros. Also I want to know how to get rid of padded zeros in case of Character Value. So If  have Var1 = "00001234".  I want Var1 = "1234" Thanks

[Reeza]

PLEASE format your code when posting.

pp2014 wrote:

Above example does convert to numeric but keeps Zeros.

It doesn't on my system, and you're using implicit conversion which will leave a note in your log.

  Obs       Var1_new      Var1

  1            1234    00001234

Use explicit conversion instead, via the input function  To remove leading zeros but retain as a character variable you can either use regular expressions to remove leading zero's or use put/input.

data a1;

format Var1_new 11.;

Var1 = "00001234";

Var1_New = input(var1, 11.);

var1_Char = put(input(var1, 11.), $11. -l);

run;

proc print data=a1;

run;

   Obs       Var1_new      Var1      Char

   1            1234    00001234    1234