replace spaces in character variable with point

[ari]

Hi,

I want to replace the missing (spaces) in character variable with . (dot). 

Is there any way to do this in SAS?

Thanks

[Astounding]

If the original variable is 5 characters long, do you want 1 dot or 5 dots?  

If there is text in the variable, but the text includes some blanks, do you want to replace those blanks too?

[LaurieF]

Yes. Fortunately it's very easy. The translate function does it, but the order of the paramater is odd. The second parameter is what you want the variable changed to, and the third is what you want it changed from.

data _null_;
length before after $ 10;
do i = 1 to 15;
   do j = 1 to 10;
      if ranuni(225465114) < .15
         then substr(before, j, 1) = ' ';
         else substr(before, j, 1) = byte(int(ranuni(225465114) * 26) + 1 + 64);
      end;
   after = translate(before, '.', ' ');
   put (before after) ($quote10. +2);
   end;
run;

The else line is randomly populating a ten-character field with capital letters, but there's a 15% chance (previous line) that it'll be a space instead.

[RW9]

A good idea is to always post test data in the form of a datastep and what you want the output to look like so we avoid guessing certain things.