Date:         Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:37:35 -0400
Reply-To:     Ya Huang <ya.huang@AMYLIN.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Ya Huang <ya.huang@AMYLIN.COM>
Subject:      Re: Inverse of %SCAN for numeric position
Comments: To: OR Stats <stats112@GMAIL.COM>

Even in data step, there is no (at least for v8 as I know of) function
that can get the order of the word in a string. You can always use do loop
with scan() to get what you want, but that needs multiple lines of code.
To get the order of a word in a string with a one-liner, we can use a
trick similar to the one that counts the number of words in a string.
The following code shows, step by step, how it can be done:

1    data _null_;
2    a='abc defg hi jlmn opqws t uv wxy';
3    b=tranwrd(lowcase(a),'uv','z');
4    put b=;
5    b=translate
(b,'yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyz','abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz');
6    put b=;
7    b=translate(compbl(b),' xz','y z');
8    put b=;
9    b=compress(b);
10   put b=;
11   position=index(b,'z');
12   put 'uv is the # ' position ' word in the string';
13   run;

b=abc defg hi jlmn opqws t z wxy
b=yyy yyyy yy yyyy yyyyy y z yyy
b=x    x  x    x     x xzx   x
b=xxxxxxzxx
uv is the # 7  word in the string

All these lines can be nested into a one-liner. Similarly, if you know
how to use %sysfunc, you can make it a macro function.


On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:13:33 -0500, OR Stats <stats112@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Hi Everyone,  Does SAS have a macro function that is the inverse of its
>%SCAN function?  The purpose is the following:
>
>The user of my macro would input his text.  I would match the text with an
>element in my array and return the position within the array.  So that
given
>my array is declared as
>
>%let Array = Jack Jill Bob Anne;
>
>When the end-user inputs any one of the four names in my macro function, I
>would like to have 1 returned if he typed in Jack; 2 if he typed Jill and
so
>forth.  So while using SAS's %SCAN function, given the position, and the
>function returns the name.  I would like to have that function inversed so
>that given the name, a SAS function returns the position of the element
>within the array that matches the name.   Does SAS have this function?
>
>Thank you!