Date:         Thu, 7 Jul 2011 18:01:19 -0400
Reply-To:     Chris Bat <darth.pathos@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Chris Bat <darth.pathos@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      alpha-numeric data split into two tables?

Hi all,  happy thursday!  I don't think this is to terribly difficult to accomplish but I've dug around and can't find anything; it may also be that after spending 10 hours in front of my computer today, I'm a little tired.  I have received over 102,000 rows of lab data, with patient ID, result date / time, result, test, and a pile of other stuff.  What I've noticed is that there are many more alpha-based results than I was expecting (I was told to expect 15%, and based on a random sample I'm seeing closer to 30%).  What I'd like to do is somehow split the comment-type results (which would be alpha, at least in part) into a new table, and the numeric results into a third (thus leaving my original table untouched).  I tried proc sort, but because some comments start with a number, didn't work too well.  I thought of using a length(result), but there are some results of "unk" and "n/a".  I tried to pull out anything with something in the Comments field, but that didn't work be!
 cause there are valid (although anomalous) results with detailed comments.  So, I am stumped, and would appreciate any thoughts....
TIA
Chris