To select observations containing alphabets

[AKHILA]

I have a dataset like
Id name
1 negative
2 45
3 1E
4 positive
5 24

I want to derive a new variable 'Flag' in which the values having alphabets should be ' '(missing character value) and no change for others.like,
1
2 45
3
4
5 24

Someone pls help..
Thanks

[RW9]

Something like:

data want;
  set have;
  if lengthn(comrpess(name," ","d"))=0 then name_derived=compress(name," ","kd");
run;

Not tested as you have not provided test data in the form of a datastep (and not here to type in test data!).

What this does is check the length when numbers are removed, if there is nothing but numbers, then keep only them.  Compress is described in the docs:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000212246.htm

[AKHILA]

Its working what to do if i want decimal digits also like 4.2 , 1.8 etc

[Kurt_Bremser]

As already requested, POST EXAMPLE DATA IN A DATA STEP!!

[RW9 · Accepted solution]

data want;
  set have;
  if lengthn(comrpess(name,".","d"))=0 then name_derived=compress(name,".","kd");
run;

Add the dot in.  Is it that you want a numeric value?  If so:

data have;
  a="123"; output;
  a="1.45"; output;
  a="XYZ"; output;
run;

data want;
  set have;
  if lengthn(compress(a,".","d"))=0 then b=input(a,best.);
run;

[Astounding]

What should happen when NAME contains blanks such as "7 11"

I'm guessing that should be removed. In that case, you can try:

if input( name, ?? 32.) > . then flag = name;

[Sathish_jammy]

The give code will drop alphabets and spaces, only contains numeric(float datatype as well)

data want(drop = YourVariable);

set have;

NewVariable = input(compress(YourVariable,'1234567890.','k'),best12.);

run;

[RW9]

Unfortunately that doesn't match the required output (otherwise it would have been mentioned):

data have;
  input yourvariable $;
datalines;
negative
45
1E
positive
24
;
run;


data want (drop=yourvariable);
  set have; 
  newvariable=input(compress(yourvariable,'1234567890.','k'),best12.);
run;

See row 3.