How to obtain some words from a variable?

[Moraes86]

Hi all,

I wish to extract some words from the variable observation.

My goal is to extract these words (such as " H1", "N1")  from the variable (observation) to the variable observation1.

Thanks all in advance, 

So my data is described below:

data test2; set test2;

user	Observation	observation1
367	sample type      indicated the presence of subtype H1. However,	H1
1427	sample type  indicated the presence of subtype H1. However, the	H1
3046	sample type  this case and indicated the presence of         multiple types, including H1, H3, N1, and N2.	H1, H3 and N1
3146	sample  type and indicated the presence of    multiple types, including H1, H3, N1, and N2.	H1, H3, N1, and N2
8910	sample type (H,N)  fluid    indicated the presence of               multiple types, including H1, H3 and N2.	H1, H3 and N2
9091	sample type      indicated the presence of type N1.	N1

[Moraes86]

Dear ballardw,

My final result for "observation1 variable" initially is to obtain information from each line.
For example, I would like these "multiple types, including h1, H3 and N1.
So, if I have this result counting as you mention. Later, I can transform it into an outcome like "h1, H3 and N1" or "N1" in case of the other result.

Thanks in advance again,

Daniel

[ballardw]

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@Moraes86 wrote:

Dear ballardw,

My final result for "observation1 variable" initially is to obtain information from each line.
For example, I would like these "multiple types, including h1, H3 and N1.
So, if I have this result counting as you mention. Later, I can transform it into an outcome like "h1, H3 and N1" or "N1" in case of the other result.

Thanks in advance again,

Daniel

---

And this is exactly why we request that you do not post duplicate questions. I asked a question in the OTHER thread https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-extract-a-specific-text-from-each-cell-from-th...

and you "answer" it here. Actually still haven't answered it because the question was about how consistent your text actually is, and how the *bleep* you are going to use the resulting variable.

[tarheel13]

I think if it was me, I would use prxmatch to make indicator variables and then do an array of those and concatenate the array to show what was in there.

[Jerrya00 · Accepted solution]

Please try this:

data test_1;
set test;
length word $32. Observation_1 $72.;
delims = " =;,.()<>/'"; /* delimiters: space, comma, period, ... */
numWords = countw(Observation, delims); /* determining how many words in the text */
Observation_1='';
do i = 1 to numWords; /* split text into words */
word = scan(Observation, i, delims);
if compress(word) in ('H1', 'H2', 'H3', 'N1', 'N2') then
Observation_1=trim(Observation_1)||compress(word)||',';
end;
Observation_1=substr(compress(Observation_1), 1, length(compress(Observation_1))-1);
keep user Observation Observation_1;
run;

[Moraes86]

Hi Jerrya00,

It worked very well.

Thanks all for the valuable help.

Daniel