Keep only the starting word or combination of words

[Agent1592]

Dear Sas Community:

I have a simple dataset but I am trying to keep just the first word in the column.

My have data is:

data have;
  infile datalines dsd truncover;
  input _NAME_:$50. ;
datalines4;
Hurricane 1980 Allen;
Hurricane 1991 Bob;
Freeze 1990 - California;
Freeze 1998 - California;
Hurricane/ Flood;
Flood/ Hurricane;
Severe Weather 2011;
;;;;

My want table is:

How can I achieve that efficeintly?

data want;
  infile datalines dsd truncover;
  input _NAME_:$50. ;
datalines4;
Hurricane;
Hurricane;
Freeze;
Freeze ;
Hurricane;
Flood;
Severe Weather
;;;;

[PaigeMiller · Accepted solution]

data have;
  length firstword $ 20;
  infile datalines dsd truncover;
  input _NAME_:$50. ;
  firstword = scan(_name_,1);
  drop _name_;
datalines4;
Hurricane 1980 Allen;
Hurricane 1991 Bob;
Freeze 1990 - California;
Freeze 1998 - California;
Hurricane/ Flood;
;;;;

[Agent1592]

Yes this works but how about if I have two words at the beginning like "Severe Weather"

[PaigeMiller]

Then you need to develop a rule that covers all such cases where you want the second word (and also indicates when you don't want the second word) and then program that rule.