function to change character strings into acceptable variable name format?

[mcook]

Is there a function to replace all characters that are not letters, numbers or underscores,  to an underscore?  

I am nearly certain i've run across one before, and used it.  But I have been unable to find it again.

I recall the function having at least 3 arguments, one of them being modifiers, allowing you to select all letters and numbers to the list of acceptable characters.

I thought it was TranWrd but that does not have a modifiers argument.  Same with Translate. 

any ideas?

[ballardw]

If you are getting such characters in variable names then it has something with how you are reading the data and I strongly suspect Proc Import.

Very simple to prevent: Options validvarname=V7;

prior to proc import.

That will force Proc import to create variable names compatible with the SAS version 7, i.e. no characters other than letters, digits and _.

Much easier to prevent than to correct later.

[Reeza]

NLITERAL function?

NVALID function may also be useful.

COMPRESS() is the only function I can think that comes close to what you've described but I agree with @ballardw that changing how you import your data is a better overall solution.

[PGStats]

You can always do:

str_ = prxchange("s/[[:^alnum:]]/_/o", -1, strip(str));

[Ksharp]

str_ = prxchange("s/\W/_/o", -1, strip(str));