how to find a range of alphabetic letter and digital number?

[huizhao26]

How to write a sas statement to find the range of letters and numbers, such as

if var1 = 'A'  to 'G' then var2= 1;

if var3 = 1- 20 then var4 =' group1';

thanks.

[andreas_lds · Accepted solution]

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@huizhao26 wrote:

How to write a sas statement to find the range of letters and numbers, such as

if var1 = 'A'  to 'G' then var2= 1;

if var3 = 1- 20 then var4 =' group1';

thanks.

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For numeric variable you could use

if 1 <= var3 <= 20 then var4 = 'group1'

But using formats is the better way to solve such tasks.

[irena_g]

data a;
var1="K";
if rank('A') <= rank(var1)>= rank('G') then var2=1;
run;

[huizhao26]

Thanks!

[Astounding]

When working with character data, there are pitfalls.  In the simplest case, you could use:

if ('A' <= var1 <= 'G') then var2 = 1;

However, you have to pay attention to a few issues.  Will VAR1 always be in uppercase?  Uppercase letters are different than lowercase letters.  Will VAR1 always contain a single character?  If it contains "George" should that be included or excluded?  Here is a more careful version that should be considered:

if ('A' <= upcase(var1) < 'H') then var2 = 1;

But it would be helpful to know something about your data before deciding on a solution.

[huizhao26]

Thanks!