Data Manipulation Question

[dennis_oz]

Hi All, I have 5 variables as below 

Street_number

Street_name

Street_type

Suburb

Postcode

I have writte a logic that checks if any of the variable names are  empty and then I concat the remaining fields that are not empty.

For that I have written multiple IF then logic's. Can I simplify the code like do this in a loop and reduce the IF Then's ?

********************************************************************

If street_number  eq ' ' and street_name not in  ' '  and street_type not in ( ' ') and suburb not in  ' ' and postcode not in   ' ' then

Siteadd =  trim(street_name) || ' ' || trim(street_type) ||' ' || trim(suburb ) || ' ' ||  trim(postcode )

Else if 

street_number  eq ' '  and street_name  in (' ') and street_type not in ( ' ') and suburb not in (' ') and postcode not in  (' ')

Then

Siteadd =   trim(street_type)|| ' '|| trim(suburb ) || ' ' ||  trim(postcode )

else if street_number  eq ' '  and street_name  in (' ') and street_type not in ( ' ') and suburb not in (' ') and postcode in (' ')

then siteadd= trim(street_type) ||  suburb;

[ChrisNZ · Accepted solution]

You need to use the CATX function. It takes care of missing values.

SITE ADD= catx(' '
              ,Street_number
              ,Street_name
              ,Street_type
              ,Suburb
              ,Postcode);

[dennis_oz]

thanks for the reply .. I will test your solution..

Can you please suggest how I can do this using arrays 

for example : 

and loop through 

Array Adress_variables(*) Stnum stname sttype Suburb postcode 

[Patrick]

@dennis_oz 

There is no need for looping when using CATX(). May be read up in the documentation what this function provides.

You can use an array name instead of spelling out all the variables using syntax like:

catx(of myarray[*])

[ChrisNZ]

Did you see this reply?

SITEADD= catx( of MAYARRAY[*] );

[dennis_oz]

Hi Thanks , I have tested the catx solution and it works ..

I wanted to know if this could be done with arrays and hence i had asked the question ..

If it's too much of a bother please ignore my reply.

But many thanks to all for the quick turn around

[Patrick]

@dennis_oz 

Using catx() is just so much simpler. But here populating addr_comb_2 the way you could have done it in the old days before the strip() and catx() function got introduced.

data have;
  Street_number='Street_number';
  Street_name='Street_name';
  Street_type='      ';
  Suburb='Suburb';
  Postcode='Postcode';
  output;
  stop;
run;

data want(drop=_:);
  set have;
  length addr_comb_1 addr_comb_2 $200;
  array addrvars {*} Street_number Street_name Street_type Suburb Postcode;
  addr_comb_1=catx(' ', of addrvars [*]);
  do _i=1 to dim(addrvars);
    if addrvars[_i] ne ' ' then 
      addr_comb_2=trim(left(addr_comb_2))||' '||left(addrvars[_i]);
  end;
run;

proc print;
run;