Date:         Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:05:07 -0800
Reply-To:     Henry <chchanghenry@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Henry <chchanghenry@GMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: Check if a variable has any letter from A to Z. Is there a
              function for it? Thanks
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi  Alex,

Thanks for your help!


On Mar 10, 2:16 am, Alex <alexander.k...@iea-dpc.de> wrote:
> On Mar 10, 5:33 am, Henry <chchanghe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hello there,
>
> > I was wondering if there is a function that can help us to identify if
> > there is a letter (no matter which one from A-Z) in a variable.  Of
> > course the variable will be defined as character since it contains
> > some letters in some observations.  So, just wonder if there is a
> > function to identify it as 0 or 1?  In other words, can I get a new
> > indicator = 1 if the variable "answer" contains any letter from A to
> > Z.  and  = 0 if not containing any letter?   Thanks a lot!
>
> > DATA OLD;
> > INPUT ID $ 1-3
> > ANSWER $ 5-9;
> > DATALINES;
> > 001 ACBED
> > 002 11
> > 003 12
> > 004 zx
> > ;
>
> Hi Henry,
>
> Try out the anyalpha() function. It returns the first position at
> which a character is found in the string you pass to it. In your case
> you can use it like this in order to get a flag indicating whether
> ANSWER contains a letter or not:
>
> DATA OLD;
> INPUT ID $ 1-3
> ANSWER $ 5-9;
>
> ALPHA = ( anyalpha( ANSWER ) > 0 );
>
> DATALINES;
> 001 ACBED
> 002 11
> 003 12
> 004 zx
> 005 1a
> ;
> run;
> proc print;
> run;
>
> Note that I added record 005, which contains a letter at the 2nd
> position.
>
> Cheers,
> Alex