how to create variable like this?

[Mike_Davis]

Hello everyone,

there is a column A whoes format  is  $7, I want create a new column B with $10.  the rule of create B is fill 'x' on the left side of A.

Thanks

Mike

for example:

1.

in column A,a row has value   '12345'

I want to create B with value 'XXXXX12345' ($10.)

2.

in column A,a row has value   '1234567'

I want to create B with value 'XXX1234567'($10.)

[Haikuo]

data have;

input a $7.;

cards;

1234567

1234

12345

;

data want;

set have;

b=cats(repeat('x',9-length(a)),a);

run;

proc print;run;

Haikuo

[Tom]

You could use TRANSLATE (or even TRANWRD) function.

Use the RIGHT function to get the original value moved to the right then replace the spaces with XXX.

data want;

  set have;

  length b $ 10;

  b=a;

  b=translate(right(b),'X',' ');

  put (a b) (= $quote.);

run;

a="1234567" b="XXX1234567"

a="1234" b="XXXXXX1234"

a="12345" b="XXXXX12345"

Note that it is the LENGTH of the character variable that is important, not the FORMAT that is attached to it.

[Linlin]

borrowed Astounding's code:

data have;

a='1234567';

output;

a='123';

output;

run;

data want;

length b $10;

set have;

b='xxxxxxxxxx';

substr(b, 10-length(a)+1) = a;

proc print;

run;

[MikeZdeb]

hi ... the more the merrier ...

proc format;

picture a low-high='0000000000' (fill='X');

run;

data want;

set have;

b = put(input(a,7.),a.);

run;

[Mike_Davis]

Thank you Mike

If we have dataset like this:(not numbers but characters),how to do it in this way?

Thanks!

Mike

data have;

input a $7.;

cards;

aaaaaa

bbbbb

cccc

;

[MikeZdeb]

hi ... PICTURE formats work with numeric variables

there have been several nice solutions posted that work with character data, here's another possibility ...

data want;

length b $10;

set have;

b =catt(a,substr('xxxxxxxxxx',1,9-length(a)));

run;

similar to Haikuo 's solution, but you should use a length statement when using the CAT functions given that the default length of the result is 200

if you really wanted a one statement solution that gives you a variable with a length of 10, you could get rid of the LENGTH statement and use a PUT function with the CATT result ...

data want;

set have;

b = put(catt(a,substr('xxxxxxxxxx',1,9-length(a))),$10.);

run;

[Linlin]

or it should be:

b = put(catt(substr('xxxxxxxxxx',1,10-length(a)),a),$10.);