SAS string manipulation 1

[cosmid]

Hi,

I have a data set with the following values for the variable name:

lastname firstname
lastname firstname
lastname firstname

how do I change it to the following?

lastname firstname
lastname firstname
lastname firstname

With 1 spaces in between. I forgot what SAS function does that.

Thanks

 

[cosmid]

Actually, I was trying to create a new variable Name with the concatenation of Lastname and Firstname. However, after I concatenated them, the spaces are different.

I used: name = lastname || ' ' || firstname

If I can concatenate them with just 1 spaces in between, it also solves my problem from above.

thanks

 

[cosmid]

Problem solved!

I used the trim() function before I concatanated the 2 variables. That take cares of the space problem.

Now my problem is how do I remove a thread that I posted myself?

 

[klaz2002]

You dont

 

[cosmid]

oh...I just got hope nobody will click on this thread then.

 

[kdt82]

This is what the catx function in sas9 is for - It will concatenate strings and remove leading and lagging blanks.

name = catx(' ',lastname,firstname);

 

[cosmid]

ahh..thanks! I never heard of this function. which book do you use?

 

[kdt82]

No books - I think the SAS docs are probably the best resource

http://support.sas.com/onlinedoc/913/docMainpage.jsp

Also googling SAS9 string functions will bring up some interesting pages.

 

[cosmid]

ahh..thanks! i didn't know SAS documentation can be find online!