Parse a long text field with varying length results to new variables

[myboys2]

I have a text file that is not delimited and my name field looks like this:

JOHN    DOE

MARYELIZABETH    SMITH

JACKIE    DOE

SOPHIE    DOE

The field is $50. as name AND there are four spaces in between the firstname and the lastname

How do I parse it to give me FIRST NAME AND LAST NAME

Thank you in advance

[novinosrin]

did you try scan function?

data output;

set input;

FIRST_NAME=scan(name, 1);

 LAST_NAME=scan(name,2);

run;

[myboys2]

thanks I did try what you said and also this and both did not work

first_nm=scan(r_name,1,' '); last_nm=scan(r_name,2,' ');

[myboys2]

I ended up doing this - thank you 🙂
format lname $15.;
format fname $15.;
lname=scan(r_name,1,' ');
fname=left(scan(r_name,2,' '))

[novinosrin]

Ok Good 🙂

[snoopy369]

If both first and last name are guaranteed not to have any spaces, you can just use SCAN.

If you specify 4 spaces because you want to treat single spaces as non-delimiters, then you have a few options.  The easiest is to use DLMSTR as '    ', I think.  

data want;
length first last $50;
infile datalines dlmstr='    ';
input
first $ last $;
;;;;
datalines;
JOHN    DOE
MARY ELIZABETH    SMITH
JACKIE    DOE
SOPHIE    DOE
;;;;
run;

But if you have other fields and want to read them as fixed width, you could read into NAME, then FIND '   ' and then use SUBSTR to parse it, or a perl regular expression.