How to convert US height values in feet' inches" to numeric value?

[Phill]

Hey there,

I looked around and I found a few suggestions such as https://communities.sas.com/thread/30121?start=0&tstart=0. However, I have a slightly different scenario and I cannot figure it out by myself.

The observations are saved in a SAS dataset in one char variable like 5' 10, 6' 4" ... etc. The problem I ran into most of the time were unbalanced quotation marks.

The final goal is it to convert the data into a numeric value (total inches or cm) to open it up for numeric procs for better analysis.

Any suggestions are very much appreciated!bas

[Reeza]

Use KSharp's solution from the tread above but change your scan options, to reflect your data.

Probably work on getting the scan to work properly first is a good place to start.

[Tom]

If the data consistently includes FEET value then you could use something like this:

data check;

input charvar $10.;

inches = sum

(12*input(scan(charvar,1,'"'''),5.)

,input(scan(charvar,2,'"'''),5.)

)

;

put (inches charvar) (=);

cards;

5' 8"

4'

run;

inches=68 charvar=5' 8"

inches=48 charvar=4'