Urgent: Extract the characters before the first occurrence of ' ' or '-'

[tosasvj]

Need to extract the characters before the first occurrence of ' ' or '-'

For example:

'ROM A STAR' output: 'ROM'

'ROMA STAR-RAN' output:'ROMA'

'VNAM-RAN STR' output: 'VNAM'

'K-NIT RAN-STA' output: 'K'

Thanks in advance!

[novinosrin · Accepted solution]

data have;
input var $quote20.;
cards;
'ROM A STAR' 
'ROMA STAR-RAN' 
'VNAM-RAN STR' 
'K-NIT RAN-STA' 
;
data Need;
 set have;
 length need $20;
 need=scan(var,1,' -');
run;
/*or*/
data Need;
 set have;
 length need $20;
 need=prxchange('s/^([a-z]+)[-\s].*/$1/i', -1, var);
run;
/*or even NOTALPHA*/
data Need;
 set have;
 length need $20;
 need=substr(var,1,notalpha(var)-1);
run;

[tosasvj]

thank you!!