Illegal reference to the array?

[ybz12003]

Hello,

I would like to search 'ECZEMA' in the six columns from string1 to string6.  Then I tried to run a do loop command.  But an error message was shown in the log window.  Please help, thank you.

data want;
	set have ;	
	array string_{*} String1 - String6;
	  do i = 1 to 6;
	if prxmatch('/ECZEMA/i',string_) then allergy=1;
	end;
run;

The error messages were list below, and also why in the 'Note' statement, 'Numeric values have been converted to character values?'

ERROR: Illegal reference to the array string_.

NOTE: Numeric values have been converted to character values at the places given by:

(Line):(Column).

105:38 106:38 107:42 108:47 109:27 110:34 111:34 113:44

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

WARNING: The data set WORK.have may be incomplete. When this step was

stopped there were 0 observations and 18 variables.

WARNING: Data set WORK.have was not replaced because this step was

stopped.

[Shmuel]

You can try next code:

data want;
	set have ;	
	array string_{*} String1 - String6;
	 do i = 1 to 6;
	    if upcase(string_(i)) = "ECZEMA" then allergy=1;
	end;
run;

[ybz12003]

I have multiple prematching texts, which are not just 'ECZEMA,'

[Shmuel · Accepted solution]

You miss the index to array member.

May be next code will work

data want;
	set have ;	
	array string_{*} String1 - String6;
	  do i = 1 to 6;
	if prxmatch('/ECZEMA/i',string_(i)) then allergy=1;
	end;
run;

[PGStats]

You forgot the index in your array reference

if prxmatch('/ECZEMA/i', string_{i}) then allergy = 1;