finding specific words and creating a new variable

[Angi]

Hi,

I have a dataset that lists various ways a student has been contacted by the school. I want to create a separate variable called “personal” which includes only those methods that have the word “personal” in them.

I used a if find () then syntax to create separate columns for personal phone call and personal letter and then used catt function to combine then into one variable “personal.”

Is there a more efficient way to get this done?

Thank you.

Data Have

ID	Method1	Method2	Method3
1	Text	Email	Personal phone call
2	Email	Personal letter
3	Personal letter	Personal phone call	Text
4	Email	Text

Data Want

ID	Method1	Method2	Method3	Personal
1	Text	Email	Personal phone call	Personal phone call
2	Email	Personal letter		Personal letter
3	Personal letter	Personal phone call	Text	Personal letter Personal phone call
4	Email	Text

[RW9 · Accepted solution]

Well, its pretty straight forward, assuming there is only one occurence of "Personal":

data have;

  length method1-method3 $20;

  id=1; method1="Text"; method2="Email"; method3="Personal phone call"; output;

  id=2; method1="Email"; method2="Personal letter"; method3=""; output;

run;

data want (drop=i);

  set have;

  length personal $20;

  array method{3};

  do i=1 to 3;

    if index(method{i},"Personal")>0 then personal=method{i};

  end;

run;

[Angi]

Thank you

[sam369]

I am considering the RW9 approach,

data have;

  length method1-method3 $20;

  id=1; method1="Text"; method2="Email"; method3="Personal phone call"; output;

  id=2; method1="Email"; method2="Personal letter"; method3=""; output;

  id=3;method1="Personal letter"; method2="Personal phone call"; method3="Text"; output;

  id=4;method1="Email"; method2="Text"; method3=""; output;

run;

data want(drop=i);

  set have;

   length personal $50.;

    array method(3);

       do i=1 to 3;

if index(method{i},"Personal")>0 then personal=catx(' ',personal,method{i});

       end;

  run;

Thanks

Sam

[Angi]

Thank you