Removing last 5 characters from a string

[dber]

How do remove the last 5 characters from a char string regardless of length?

Thanks

[Reeza]

SUBSTR() + REVERSE()

SUBSTR() + LENGTH()

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@dber wrote:

How do remove the last 5 characters from a char string regardless of length?

Thanks

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[PeterClemmensen · Accepted solution]

data _null_;
   string="abcdefghijklx";
   newstring=substr(string, 1, length(string)-5);
   put newstring;
run;

[RW9]

Just a note that you may want lengthn() to avoid extra spaces at the end.

[PeterClemmensen]

Right you are 🙂

[ballardw]

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@PeterClemmensen wrote:

data _null_;
   string="abcdefghijklx";
   newstring=substr(string, 1, length(string)-5);
   put newstring;
run;

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You may want to check that the length of the string is actual greater than or at least 5 to prevent error messages.

Just in case there are shorter than expected string values.

   if length(string) ge 5 then newstring=substr(string, 1, length(string)-5);

[gamotte]

or use substrn :

data _null_;
   string="abcd";
   newstring=substrn(string, 1, length(string)-5);
   put newstring=;
run;

[novinosrin]

If the objective is just to remove and not create a new variable, you can use just this

data want;
   string="abcdefghijklx";
  substr(string, length(string)-5)=' ';
run;