adding a "*" (star) symbol

[geneshackman]

Hi all. Say I have a data set with these variables.

ID varA  varB  varAtext  footnote2

1   12      34      12          * means caution in interpreting

I want to add a "*" to varAtext, so it will look like this:

ID varA  varB  varAtext  footnote2

1   12      34      12*         * means caution in interpreting

How do I do that?

In the original data set, there was another column, "Interpret_with_caution" and some rows had "YES", so I had code 

if Intepret_With_Caution eq "YES" then Footnotes2 = "* means caution in interpreting";

And please, folks, no comments about why do I want to do this, why do I want to use this symbol, why do I use those words about caution, what are the rules for when to interpret with caution, and so on. Please, if you could just give me advise on how to do this, that would be great.

Thanks

[geneshackman]

Forgot to say, column varA is numeric, and varAtext is, obviously, string, or text.

[Tom · Accepted solution]

The way you have worded this all you need to do is:

data want;
  set have;
  varAtext = cats(varAtext,'*');
run;

But I suspect there is something more complex you want to do but have not explained.

So perhaps VARATEXT is not defined long enough to handle the extra character?

Or perhaps there is some condition you need to test before adding the asterisk? 

Or perhaps you want to create VARATEXT from VARA?

[geneshackman]

Tom. I think your method will work. I'll try it out and let you know. I was asking because I just wasn't sure about the "*" symbol because I wasn't sure whether SAS thought * meant "everything", the way excel does.

[geneshackman]

Tom, I just tried your method. It works. Thank you very much!