Date:         Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:37:31 -0500
Reply-To:     "Gregg P. Snell" <gsnell@datasavantconsulting.com>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Gregg P. Snell" <gsnell@DATASAVANTCONSULTING.COM>
Organization: Data Savant Consulting
Subject:      Re: searching for a character in a character field
Comments: To: melanie.barish@clinarc.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Melanie,

Here is just one example that will count the names, though it assumes the
field always has at least one name.

data _null_;
  drug1='one/two/three';
  names=length(trim(drug1))-length(compress(trim(drug1),'/'))+1;
  put names=;
run;

I have no idea what your fields might contain if not names, so you will
definitely have to tweak this to your own data. But it should give you
something to start with...


Gregg P. Snell
Data Savant Consulting
(913) 638-4640
(208) 977-1943 fax
http://www.datasavantconsulting.com

Co-chair of MWSUG 2001
http://www.mwsug.org/mw_2001/index.htm

Melanie Barish <melanie.barish@CLINARC.COM> wrote in message
news:5240538BEE29D411A7F100902778790C7D4A18@MUDSKIPPER...
> Hello SAS-L,
>
> I need to search 6 fields (drug1 - drug6) to identify how many of the 6
> actually have a name in them.  However, some have more than one name,
> seperated by a slash.  Is there a SAS function that I can use to count how
> many times in a given field that the slash appears?  I looked up INDEX and
> SCAN, but they both appear to only return the location of the slash, not
how
> many times it is found.  Any suggestions would be greatly
> appreciated...thank you in advance for your help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Melanie
>
>
> Melanie J. Barish
> Clinical Data Manager
> ClinArc
> 212-698-1561
>
>
>
>