Remove all the "-" or "_" between the text, and compress the text?

[ybz12003]

Hi Experts,

I remember there is a SAS function which could remove all the "-" or "_" between the text, and compress the text?  But I forgot which one.   My variable is Charastatic.    Please advice.  Thanks.

[r_behata · Accepted solution]

data _null_;
	want=compress("remove - or _","_-");
	put want=;
run;

25         GOPTIONS ACCESSIBLE;
26         data _null_;
27         want=compress("remove - or _","_-");
28         
29         put want=;
30         run;

want=remove  or

[ybz12003]

I got it work, thanks.

[ed_sas_member]

Hi @ybz12003 

Another possibility is to use the PRXCHANGE function:

data _null_;
	want=prxchange('s/(^\s*|-|_|\s*$)//',-1,"   remove - or _  ");
run;

It looks for the following patterns ^\s*|-|_|\s*$ as many times as needed (-1):

• ^\s = zero, one or more (*) blanks (\s) at the beginning of the string (^)
• \s$ = zero, one or more (*) blanks (\s) at the beginning of the string ($)
• an hyphen (-)
• an underscore (_)

and replace them by nothing.