Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:56:34 -0500
Reply-To:     Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject:      Re: Separating an ID from a Variable String
Comments: To: Craig Johnson <cjohns38@GMAIL.COM>

Craig,

While I'm sure that you already have your needed solution, it was pointed
out to me (offline .. thanks again Howard) that that I had engaged in a
bit of unnecessary over-engineering.

The following does the same thing a lot more easily:

data Example;
  input FileName $ 1-38;
  FinalID =scan(filename,-2,'-');
  datalines;
Assessment1-Sample-1234-1.txt
Assessment2-Whatever-12-3.edat
MakingThingsDifficult-Booo-567-2.txt
;

Art
---------

>Craig,
>
>One more suggestion: since your filenames may have extra hyphens, you
could
>always use a scan on the reverse of the filename.  E.g.,
>
>data Example;
>  input FileName $ 1-38;
>  FinalID =reverse(scan(reverse(filename),2,'-'));
>  datalines;
>Assessment1-Sample-1234-1.txt
>Assessment2-Whatever-12-3.edat
>MakingThingsDifficult-Booo-567-2.txt
>;
>
>HTH,
>Art
>---------
>On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:59:09 -0600, Craig Johnson <cjohns38@GMAIL.COM>
>wrote:
>
>>Hi Joe,
>>
>>Thanks for your quick response.  It looks like you had a similar idea as
>>Arthur and took it the extra step of conpensating for the number of
>>character separators like I posted after Arthur's suggestion.  I ran the
>>code and it worked on the 464 files we have so it looks very promising.
>>Thanks to both of you for your help.