Oops. Sorry I should've looked at what I didn't include:

data test; input ptid $6.; pid=input(ptid,6.); newptid=put(pid,$5.); cards; 000012 020093 004000 ;

proc contents; run;

HTH

Kumar -----Original Message----- From: Sridhar, Kumar Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 5:13 PM To: 'Andrew Kramer'; SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: RE: [BULK] Strip leading zeros

Andrew: IMHO, the fastest way of doing this would be (and I think this would be version-independent):

data test; input ptid $6.; pid=input(ptid,6.); cards; 000012 020093 004000 ;

proc print; run;

Thanks and regards

-----Original Message----- From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Andrew Kramer Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 4:56 PM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: [BULK] Strip leading zeros Importance: Low

I inherited a file that has an undesirable format for the patient ID ("PTID"). In essence PTID was derived from a numeric variable and reformatted as $6. Unfortunately leading zeros were added to fill out the variable. I would like to strip away the leading zeros and leave the rest of the value. Here's some examples of what I'd like to do:

PTID newPTID 000012 12 020093 20093 004000 4000

I'm using version 9.1.3.

Thanks, Andrew Kramer