Just to note on the above very good examples, there is one element of macro functionality which does come up much.  It is described in this article: http://www.lexjansen.com/pharmasug/2006/technicaltechniques/tt28.pdf So you could change your macro slightly to: %macro check (var) / pbuff; Then scan the syspbuff variable.  Just another option. ... View more

Pre-process the string and add your split character, then datastep split the string out: %macro Chop (inds=,invar=,num_output_cols=,max_length=40); data &inds. (drop=text_to_process);   set &inds.;   attrib &invar._new_text format=$2000.;   attrib text_to_process format=$2000.;   text_to_process=&invar.;   do while (length(trim(text_to_process)) > &max_length.);    &invar._new_text=trim(&invar._new_text)||'$'||substr(text_to_process,1,prxmatch("/\/[^\/]*$/",substr(tranwrd(text_to_process,' ','/'),1,40)));    text_to_process=substr(text_to_process,prxmatch("/\/[^\/]*$/",substr(tranwrd(text_to_process,' ','/'),1,40)));   end;   &invar._new_text=trim(&invar._new_text)||'$'||trim(text_to_process); run;   data &inds.;     set &inds.;     attrib     %do i=1 %to &num_output_cols.;       split_&i.     %end;       format=$&max_length..;     %do i=1 %to &num_output_cols.;       split_&i.=scan(&invar._new_text,&i.+1,"$");     %end;   run; %mend Chop; data my_test;   attrib really_long_string format=$200.;   really_long_string="This is a long sentance which will be trimmed at this word as it splits over the row and also at this record as that splits as well.";   output; run; %Chop (inds=work.my_test,num_output_cols=4,invar=really_long_string); ... View more

That's straightforward: data want;      attrib var1 format=$200.;      infile datalines;      input var1 $; datalines; 182-04-7814ASPDEN530 302-57-5023ATWOOD480 123-89-8470BROSNAN560 152-64-0014BROSSO780 813-63-7456CUTCHINS790 186-79-3143HOLERBACH670 ; run; Though I presume you mean you want to read it in as separate variables?  If so post process it, here is a quick example, you just need to do substrings and chop it up (or use perl regular expressions). data want;   set want;   attrib first_string second_string format=$20. lastnum format=best.;   first_string=substr(var1,1,10);   lastnum=input(reverse(substr(reverse(strip(var1)),1,3)),best.);   second_string=substr(var1,11,length(strip(var1))-3); run; ... View more

Hi, You can do it in several ways, here is a datastep using substr to chop up the string: data have (drop=find_last_space);   attrib really_long_string format=$200.;   attrib only_50_chars format=$50.;   attrib find_last_space format=best.;   really_long_string="This is a long sentance which will be trimmed at this word as it splits over the row and also at this record as that splits as well.";   do until (length(strip(really_long_string))=1);     find_last_space=index(reverse(substr(really_long_string,1,50))," ");     only_50_chars=substr(really_long_string,1,50-find_last_space);     really_long_string=substr(really_long_string,52-find_last_space);  /* Note use 52, or strip the result to get rid of blank */     output;   end; run; ... View more