Date:         Thu, 10 Feb 2005 13:39:00 -0500
Reply-To:     Nathaniel_Wooding@DOM.COM
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Nat Wooding <Nathaniel_Wooding@DOM.COM>
Subject:      Re: Antwort: Re: Comparison of text strings
Comments: To: Armin_Bauerbach@dadebehring.com
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Armin told me off list that he/she wants to compare from the beginning so
here is a solution.

Nat Wooding

data a;
LENGTH string1   string2 $ 10;
input string1 $ string2 $;
cards;
ABCdef ABCXYZ
ABCdef xyABCdef
ABCDEFGHIJ ABCDEFGHIJ
proc print;run;
data b;
     set;
       length shared $ 10;
       shared=' ';
       drop i c1 c2;
       do i = 1 to LENGTH(STRING1);
           c1=substr(string1,i,1);
           c2=substr(string2,i,1);
             if (c1=c2) and c1 gt '' then shared=compress(shared||c1);
             else leave;
       end;
proc print;
run;



                      Armin_Bauerbach@dade
                      behring.com                 To:       Nathaniel_Wooding@dom.com
                                                  cc:
                      02/10/05 10:22 AM           Subject:  Antwort: Re: Comparison of text strings






Nathaniel

I would get the part of string agreeing from the begining:

"ABCdef"  vs. "ABCXYZ" is "ABC"
"ABCdef"  vs. "xyABCdef" is ""

or in case of three string:

"ABCdef" vs. "ABCxyz" vs "ABgxyz" is "AB"

Armin Bauerbach



|---------+---------------------------->
|         |           Nathaniel_Wooding|
|         |           @dom.com         |
|         |                            |
|         |           10.02.2005 16:14 |
|         |                            |
|---------+---------------------------->

>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

  |
|
  |       An:       Armin Bauerbach <armin_bauerbach@DADEBEHRING.COM>
|
  |       Kopie:
|
  |       Thema:    Re: Comparison of text strings
|

>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|





Armin

Will you always want to start at the begining of each string and compare
them character by character or could you have cases like

AbCd    abd   giving    bd

or

ABCe    vs  aaaBC    giving BC


Nat Wooding