Concatenate multiple column and add space and hyphen

[Xiaoyi]

Concatenate multiple column and add space

I want to concatenate multiple column to a new var as show below, adding space and other signs. I wrote a very long and a little complicated catx with many layers.

I wonder if you have a more straight forward and much simpler way to do this. Thank you in advance.

Obs	count	prev	CI_L	CI_H	Newvar
1	22	1.2	0.7	1.8	1.2 (0.7-1.8)
2	66	3.5	2.7	4.4	3.5 (2.7-4.4)
3	121	6.4	5.3	7.6	6.4 (5.3-7.6)

[Xiaoyi]

I think I figure out a simpler method using catx and cats. But if you have any other ideas, feel free to post and help whoever may look for an answer for the same question. Thanks.

[Tom]

If the source variables are numeric then you probably also want to use PUT() rather than just CATS() to convert them into strings.  That will make sure the strings used to represent the numbers use consistent style.