Hi there,

For your specific case I would try something like

data test2; set importedfile; if find(lowcase(drag1),'twink')>0 then drag1=tranwrd(lowcase(drag1),'twink','whatever'); run;

Best wishes Tom

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]Im Auftrag von Beaulieu, Serge (DHW/SME) Gesendet: Mittwoch, 28. Juni 2006 15:41 An: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: regular expressions in SAS

Hi Folks,

I am a relative newbi to SAS (about 2 months of experience so far) and I have encountered a situation where it looks like I may need to use regular expressions and never having used this before - I am looking for advice.

Essentially, I had a csv file which has been successfully imported to sas. I was going to try to fix the data before importing it but have since abandoned that idea.

The data in the sas table that I wish to edit is in a column called 'drag1' of this sas table called 'avenue'. In the drag column - which is formatted as Character $75 - I need to find instances of particular text strings and replace the entire field entry with something else dependent on the string that was found.

For example I want to find every derivation of 'twinkle' or 'twi nky', '^twinkles' or 'Btwinkl' and replace it with 'whatever'

I thought of using something like:

if drag1 eq 'twinkle' or drag1 eq 'twinky' or drag1 eq 'twinkles'

(insert lots of combinations here) then do drag1 = 'whatever';end; run;

But even finding all of the combinations could take forever.

Essentially ... I want to find any occurance -like- ?twink? and replace the entire string with 'whatever'.

I have also read something in a command called 'proc sql ... like' '%twink%'. This seems like it might be close but am not sure how to imbed that into the above which I have tested and works but only on those exact values and I want to broaden the scope.

I posted this to the sas ods base reporting forum and someone suggested I come here.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Serge