Date:         Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:09:59 -0500
Reply-To:     "Oliver, Richard" <roliver@spss.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Oliver, Richard" <roliver@spss.com>
Subject:      Re: LPAD question
Comments: To: "Parise, Carol A." <PariseC@sutterhealth.org>
In-Reply-To:  A<5E0F889A8147254F83D0250D0E7CE6C6E0DE61@DCSH15VX.root.sutterhealth.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

try this instead:

newvar (a9).
compute newvar=concat('0000', rtrim(oldvar)).

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Parise, Carol A.
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 10:39 AM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: LPAD question

Hi all,

i think this will be a quick question for someone.

I have string data:

oldVAR

5678
13056

I need to put 4 leading 0s on these so that they look like this:

00005678
000013056

i thought the following would do the trick:

string newVAR(A9).
compute newVAR =LPAD(oldVAR,4,'0').
execute.

but, it's just returning the same numbers. what have i screwed up?

thanks a bunch.
Carol

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