Here's a code snippet that should work, typo notwithstanding. Modify to suite your needs.
data _null_;
if _n_ = 1 then do;
regid = prxparse( '/^.*"(.*)".*"(.*)"/' );
retain regid;
if regid = 0 then do;
put 'improper reg expression';
stop;
end;
end;
length str s1 s2 $ 1000; /* or whatever length */
input str;
s1 = prxposn( regid, 1, str ); /* quick & short */
s2 = prxposn( regid, 2, str ); /* believed to do two independent scans of the str */
/* alternative form - believed to be more efficient as prxmatch is called only once */
if prxmatch( regid, str ) then do; /* if patterns matches then... */
call prxposn( regid, 1, pos, len );
s1 = substr( str, pos, len );
call prxposn( regid, 2, pos, len );
s2 = substr( str, pos, len );
end;
cards;
Blah blah Blah "Dont need this" yada yada yada "Definately need this" so forth and so on...
;;;;
The regular expression '/^.*"(.*)".*"(.*)"/' deconstructs as follows:
/ is the beginning of the regular expression. standard convention.
^ is the beginning of the string
.* matches any character 0 or more times (indeterminate)
" matches this character - beginning of 1st quoted string
(.*) is the 1st capture buffer, marked by (). the content is between the (), in this case .* says everything.
" finishes the 1st quotation
.* says anything can separate the two quoted strings
"(.*)" is the capture buffer for the second quoted string.
/ closes off this regular expression
Hope this helps. Enjoy.
