Date:         Wed, 11 Dec 2002 16:08:47 -0500
Reply-To:     Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: scan function question
Comments: To: "Primak, Philip" <Philip.Primak@GENZYME.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Phil,

Think historical INPUT.  In list input SAS skips over any number of spaces
between fields.  For example:

   data _null_ ;
      input x ;
      put x= ;
   cards ;
   1
     1
        1
           1
   ;

will find all numbers 1 for the first field.  Well SCAN is constructed to do
the same thing.  What one needs is an optional parameter to tell SCAN
whether to work this way or the way you would like.  There may be something
in Version 9 although it is probably a new function rather than an extra
argument.

Be thankful you don't have to parse ---1-2-3-4--5 the way you indicated.  in
that case you would essentially have to write the scan function.

IanWhitlock@westat.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Primak, Philip [mailto:Philip.Primak@GENZYME.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 10:56 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: scan function question


Hi SAS users,

I have to select the first word of the string using dash as delimiter. As
you can see from the LOG below, it does not work correctly when the string
starts from dash. In that case it chooses the 2nd word instead of the 1st
one. Is there a way to fix it? The only idea that has come to my head so far
is use trick like word1=scan(' '||str,1,'-') (Alternative way like check the
1st character using substr function I have rejected - it is not elegant and
too strait forward). Any better ideas? Also, WHY scan function is not
working correctly?

Advance thanks
Philip Primak
Genzyme


244  data _null_;
245    length word1 $8;
246    length str $16;
247
248    str='1-5678';
249    word1=scan(str,1,'-');
250    put 'Entire String: ' str/ 'The First Word: ' word1;
251
252    str='-5678';
253    word1=scan(str,1,'-');
254    put 'Entire String: ' str/ 'The First Word: ' word1;
255
256  run;

Entire String: 1-5678
The First Word: 1
Entire String: -5678
The First Word: 5678
NOTE: DATA statement used:
      real time           0.00 seconds
      cpu time            0.00 seconds