Data Type Conversion

[r3570]

Hi,

I have a variable which has value like 'XZ_VAC_901' in character format.

I have to convert this to numeric. Can anyone help ?

[Reeza]

Are they all this exact structure?

I would use compress to remove anything but digits and then use compress. If you have decimal points this may not work. 

data demo;
length value_char $15.;
value_char= 'XZ_VAC_901';
value_numeric = input(compress(value_char, , 'kd'), 8.);
run;

proc print data=demo;
run;

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@r3570 wrote:

Hi,

I have a variable which has value like 'XZ_VAC_901' in character format.

I have to convert this to numeric. Can anyone help ?

---

[r3570]

@Reeza 

My requirement was just to change the data type to numeric from character.

There is no requirement to separate out the numbers and characters.

I just need the variable type to be converted to numeric retaining the values in the variable as such.

XZ_VAC_901 (char) to XZ_VAC_901 (num)

The whole table has the values in same format as provided in above example.

If you can help with that it would be great.

[Kurt_Bremser]

"XZ_VAC" is (very obviously) not a number, so this is not possible as such.

If you have a limited, predefined scope of possible values, you could encode them in numbers and use a format to display the characters.

[r3570]

Hi,

I have a variable which has value like 'XZ_VAC_901' in character format.
I have to convert this to numeric. Can anyone help ?
My requirement was just to change the data type to numeric from character.
There is no requirement to separate out the numbers and characters.
I just need the variable type to be converted to numeric retaining the values in the variable as such.
XZ_VAC_901 (char) to XZ_VAC_901 (num)
The whole table has the values in same format as provided in above example.
If anyone can help with this it would be great.

[ballardw]

---

@r3570 wrote:

Hi,

I have a variable which has value like 'XZ_VAC_901' in character format.
I have to convert this to numeric. Can anyone help ?
My requirement was just to change the data type to numeric from character.
There is no requirement to separate out the numbers and characters.
I just need the variable type to be converted to numeric retaining the values in the variable as such.
XZ_VAC_901 (char) to XZ_VAC_901 (num)
The whole table has the values in same format as provided in above example.
If anyone can help with this it would be great.

---

XZ_VAC are not numerals or digits so what you ask makes no sense whatsoever. Any character other than 123456789 and decimal, except in the case of E for exponential notation or ABCDEF for hexadecimal values, or ROMAN numerals where _ZA901 are not numerals) are not numbers. Period.

If someone has given you this requirement then ask them what the numeric value is.

[Reeza]

By what rule? What should XZ_VAC_901 map to? What's the encoding system?