How to read a column having different currency formatted data.

[Nikhiljain22740]

Hi,

I've a csv data file that have a salary column. Salary is stored from globally so having dollar, euro, pond... etc symbol. Need help to read such type data into sas.

Example :
Salary
$30,000
€25,000
€40,000
¥80,000
...

Please help me to read this data in sas.

Thanks
Nikhil Jain

[Patrick · Accepted solution]

@Nikhiljain22740

You can split the source string into the currency symbol and the amount as done in the code below.

You will need lookup tables for anything else like conversion to 3 letter currency codes or conversion of currency amounts to a baseline currency.

data have;
  infile datalines truncover;
  input amount_string $20.;
  currency_amt=input(compress(amount_string,'.','kd'),best32.);
  currency_symbol=substrn(amount_string,1,anydigit(amount_string)-1);
  datalines;
$30,000
€25,000
€40,000
¥80,000
;
run;

[Ksharp]

Patrick,

You gonna know €25,000 is expressed as  25.000 not 25000

[Patrick]

@Ksharp

I've interpreted the comma as thousand separator so the value should become 25000

In case the comma is the decimal separator then the function reading the amount would need to look like:

  currency_amt=input(compress(amount_string,',','kd'),commax32.);

....and I would need to see a string with actual decimals to come up with the final function suitable for the string pattern at hand. 

In my country of origin the value would be written: 25'000,00 

[Nikhiljain22740]

Thanks Patrick, It'll work but is there any generic solution like any format that we can apply on it.

[Patrick]

@Nikhiljain22740

As far as I know there isn't any SAS provided format to convert currency symbols into currency codes. It shouldn't be that hard though to create one.

As for currency conversion: There can't be a pre-fabricated format. You'll need a currency conversion table where you lookup conversion rates with some date_key, currency_key type approach.