Intentional truncation of data

[mkd]

     I have data that includes the name of a town in parenthesis.  I want to get rid of what's in the parenthesis.  Is there a way to do this in SAS...or does it need to be done outside of SAS?

Thanks in advance.

[stat_sas]

Please show some sample data.

[ballardw]

One approach, inside a data step is to include code similar to

Variable = substr(variable, 1,(index(variable,'(')-1));

[mkd]

This was very useful and did what I needed.  Thank you for answering, however, I found the SCAN function much easier to use and most likely easier for me to remember in the future.

[arodriguez · Accepted solution]

I will select the first word separated by "(" character with an scan function in the datastep

newvar=SCAN(var,1,'(');

[user24feb]

Depending on your actual data, this might work (kicks out ( and ) without replacement):

Data A;

  Ex="xxxcd(1dfd32)"; Output;

  Ex="gegewx1d (322)"; Output;

Run;

Data B;

  Set A;

  Ex_new=PRXChange("s/[\(\)]//",-1,Ex);

Run;