how do i check all the bytes are same in a variable

[elangooff1]

Hi 

I would like to check a field whether all the bytes are having same values.

Eg. I need to check  field EMP_ID which is 9bytes

IF EMP_ID in ('111111111','222222222','333333333',...,'999999999') then 

message = 'invalid employee id';

how to replicate the above scenario in an optimal way.

Thanks in advance 

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

How about

if compress(emp_id,substr(emp_id,1,1)) ="" then .....;

[elangooff1]

Thanks 🙂 this works perfectly

[Patrick]

@elangooff1

You'll probably need some extra treatment for missing source strings.

Here some additional coding options.

data sample;
  infile datalines truncover;
  input instr $char16.;
  flg1 =prxmatch('/^(\d)\1*$/o',strip(instr));
  flg2 =prxmatch('/^(\d)\1*$/o',compress(instr));
  flg3 = compress(instr,substr(instr,1,1)) eq " ";
  datalines;
11111111
2222
11111121
333 333
  444 444
  
 555 6 55
 777 7 77
aaaaaaa
;
run;