scan question (preparing SAS 9.4 Base)

[TokyoSAS]

Please  help me solve the question below. I appreciate your help.

Which assignment statement extracts 2019 from the Text variable?

1 data Scan_Quiz;
2 Text="New Year's Day, January 1st, 2019";
3 run;
4

A. 1 Year=scan(Text, 6);

B. 1 Year=scan(Text, 6, ', ');

I know A is correct but I don't understand why B is correct too?

Under B, Test will be divided by 3 

New Year's Day          and           January 1st           and              2019

because  ', ' has one comma and one space. Therefore I assumed B should be like below,

B. 1 Year=scan(Text, 3, ', ');

[ErikLund_Jensen · Accepted solution]

Hi @TokyoSAS 

It is correct because there is a space after the comma in the specified delimiter, though it is difficult to see:

 Year=scan(Text, 6, ', ');

 Year=scan(Text, 6, ',');

Scan searches for any of the specified delimiters, so the string is split:  "New | Year's | Day, |January | 1st, | 2019

Now you probably ask why the commas don't seem to count. They do, but both of the commas are followed by a space, and the default behaviour of scan is to consider two or more consecutive delimiters as one, so the spaces following the commas don't count.

[LinusH]

The space make that as valid separate delimiter as well, it's not the combination that is the delimiter.