Create a Variable based on various character lengths

[texasmfp]

Hi:

I want to create a new field with a value determined by a formula applied to the character length of another field. 

The field, called targets, contains a series of three characters, separated by a space, except for the end (e.g., KOR TUR THA ITA VNM USA CHN IND FRA POL MEX MYS IDN).  In Excel the formula is easy: =(LEN(E2)+1)/4; where E2 is the cell referenced.  In the Excel formula, you simply add 1 to make up for the lack of a trailing blank and then divid by four to get the number of 3-character targets.  For that example, the value is 13.

There are hundreds of thousands of rows in the dataset with varying 3-character counts in each.

Is there a way to do that in SAS?  Thanks

[Patrick · Accepted solution]

Are you eventually looking for the countw() function documented here?

data sample;
  string='KOR TUR THA ITA VNM USA CHN IND FRA POL MEX MYS IDN';
  n_terms=countw(string);
run;
proc print;
run;

[ketpt42]

You should be able to do the same:

value=(length(targets) + 1)/4;

[Patrick]

@ketpt42 

Your formula won't work for an empty string.

data sample;
  string='KOR TUR THA ITA VNM USA CHN IND FRA POL MEX MYS IDN';
  n_terms=countw(string);
  n_terms2=(length(string) + 1)/4;
  n_terms3=lengthn(compress(string))/3;
  output;
  string=' ';
  n_terms=countw(string);
  n_terms2=(length(string) + 1)/4;
  n_terms3=lengthn(compress(string))/3;
  output;
  stop;
run;
proc print;
run;

[ketpt42]

It wasn't clear from the information given that the value would ever be missing. Your solution was more elegant anyway.

[sustagens]

Function countw counts words