Tag: string functions

Example 8.20: Referencing lists of variables, part 2

In Example 8.19, we discussed how to refer to a group of variables with sequential names, such as varname1, varname2, varname3. This is trivial in SAS and can be done in R as we showed.It’s also sometimes useful to refer to all variables which begin w…

Example 8.19: Referencing lists of variables

In section 1.11.4 (p. 50), we discuss referring to lists of variables in a data set. In SAS, this can be done for variable stored in adjacent columns with the “var_x — var_y” syntax and for variables with sequentially enumerated suffixes with the “va…

Default value to macro variable

NOTE: This is a great one we picked up from our friends over at the SAS community. We have run across this literally hundreds of times while programming SAS macros. You need to have a default value for a variable and you don’t want to write another macro to set it if it doesn’t exist. […]

COMPRESS: SAS Function strips characters from the string

In SAS 9.1.3 , an extra argument (MODIFIER) is added to the SAS character string function COMPRESS and these modifiers modifies the action of the COMPRESS function;

Syntax: COMPRESS(<, chars><, modifiers>) ;

Following characters can …

SAS – Lowercase (lowcase) / Uppercase (upcase) / Proper Case (propcase)

We can’t stress the importance handling character case correctly. Here are the two functions you need to know and use correctly. In order to convert all characters in a sting to lowercase, use the LOWCASE function. Example: data ds_2; set ds_1; *convert it to lowercase; new_char_var=lowcase(OLD_CHAR_VAR); run; In order to convert all characters in a […]