Date:         Wed, 1 Nov 2000 10:59:15 -0800
Reply-To:     "Lund, Pete" <Peter.Lund@CFC.WA.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Lund, Pete" <Peter.Lund@CFC.WA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: remove extra space in character string
Comments: To: "Xu, Meifen" <mxu@AMGEN.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Meifen-
  You can use the COMPBL() function.  This function compresses multiple,
consecutive blanks in a string to a single blank - just what you're looking
for.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Pete Lund
WA State Caseload Forecast Council
515 15th Ave SE
Olympia, WA  98504-0962
(360) 902-0086    voice
(360) 902-0084    fax
(360) 971-0962    pager
peter.lund@cfc.wa.gov
----------------------------------------------------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: Xu, Meifen [mailto:mxu@AMGEN.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 10:54 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: remove extra space in character string


Hello, there:

I have a character variable with most character string looking very regular.
But there are a few strings among the words having more than one space. I
certainly want to eliminate these extra space and tried translate(var, ' ',
'   '). It turned to me it does not work out. I don't think compress can
function at this case because between words one  space needed for sure.

Here is the string that I want to deal with:

My    leg     was    injured.          this is original one.

I like it looking like:

My leg was injured.

Thanks