remove unwanted character at end of a string

[jenim514]

Hi!

I have a variable: Report_Num

Character values should be xx-xxx (e.g 07-041)  BUT some values have an extra character at the end (eg. 07-055D).

Is there a way to strip off that last character for some of these values?

Thanks!

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

Is there a rule we can use to identify the errant value? Does the character value actually contain ")" or were you just setting that off as example? 

Maybe a rule such as the character at the end must be a numeral or in some other list of characters?

Or the overall lenght of the variable has a specific length. The length of 07-055D would be 7 so you might use in a data step

Value = substr(value,1,6); which would strip of anything past the sixth character.

[Reeza]

Is it always xx-XXX? If so, could you substring out that portion and 'leave behind' the character?

my_char = substr(old_char, 1, 6);