Deleting space between two words with prxchange

[Caetreviop543]

Some of my variables have a space before the period, like this:

word .word
word .word

I would like them to look like this:

word.word
word.word

I'm trying to use prxchange, but it's not working. 

prxchange('s/ \w+ \./\w+\./', -1, variable);

What am I doing wrong??

[Tom]

Your REGEX is searching for periods, but your data has commas.

[Caetreviop543]

Where does it have commas? The variables have a space, and then a period.

[PGStats]

Try

's/(\w+) \./\1./'

as the regular expression. \1 repeats the match from the first parenthesis.

[r_behata · Accepted solution]

If your are trying to remove a single space followed by a "." try :

data _null_;

want = prxchange('s/\s././', -1, "word .word");

put want =;
run;

26         data _null_;
27         
28         want = prxchange('s/\s././', -1, "word .word");
29         
30         put want =;
31         run;

want=word.word

[Caetreviop543]

Thanks! Is the \ before the period to denote meta characters, only required for the first argument ('s/first argument/second argument', -1, variable) in prxchange?

[novinosrin]

For what it's worth, here is my stab at it

data have;
input var $20.;
cards;
word .word
word .word
;

data want;
 set have;
 want=prxchange('s/(\w+)\s\.(\w+)/$1.$2/', -1, var);
run;