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CHL0320
Obsidian | Level 7

Dear Community, 

I would like to learn how to calculate the mean from string variables some of them contain comments and range.

For example, the data I have is as 

ID hours
1 7-8 hours after play
2 0-1
3 10-12
4 11

And the data wanted is 

ID hours hours_m
1 7-8 hours after play 7.5
2 0-1 0.5
3 10-12 11
4 11 11

 

Thank you so much.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Use the COMPRESS function to get rid of anything but digits and hyphens, then count the "words", then calculate or just input:

data have;
infile datalines dlm="09"x dsd truncover;
input ID $ hours :$30.;
datalines;
1	7-8 hours after play
2	0-1
3	10-12
4	11
;

data want;
set have;
string = compress(hours,"-","kd");
if countw(string,"-") = 2
then hours_m = (input(scan(string,2,"-"),best.) + input(scan(string,1,"-"),best.)) / 2;
else hours_m = input(string,best.);
drop string;
run;

View solution in original post

2 REPLIES 2
Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Use the COMPRESS function to get rid of anything but digits and hyphens, then count the "words", then calculate or just input:

data have;
infile datalines dlm="09"x dsd truncover;
input ID $ hours :$30.;
datalines;
1	7-8 hours after play
2	0-1
3	10-12
4	11
;

data want;
set have;
string = compress(hours,"-","kd");
if countw(string,"-") = 2
then hours_m = (input(scan(string,2,"-"),best.) + input(scan(string,1,"-"),best.)) / 2;
else hours_m = input(string,best.);
drop string;
run;

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