Date:         Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:45:00 -0500
Reply-To:     kalfast <kalfast@PPRD.ABBOTT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         kalfast <kalfast@PPRD.ABBOTT.COM>
Organization: Abbott Laboratories
Subject:      Re: string compression
Comments: To: William Robb <saslist@MACROINT.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

kalfast wrote:
>
> William Robb wrote:
> >
> >           Mighty guru-type-people:
> >             One of our in-house wizards answered my question about
> >           removing all non-numeric characters from a string. Here is a
> >           bit of sample code for you to improve upon....
> >
> >           1 data _null_;
> >           2  strdata = '58durb864DMF951206VEb34*@4W';
> >           3  do i = 1 to length(strdata);
> >           4   if not index('1234567890',substr(strdata,i,1))
> >           5      then substr(strdata,i,1) = ' ';
> >           6  end;
> >           7  strdata=compress(strdata);
> >           8 put strdata;
> >           9 run;
> >
> >           58864951206344
> >           NOTE: The DATA Statement used 0.71 seconds.
> >
> >           NOTE: SAS Institute Inc., SAS Campus Drive, Cary, NC USA
>
> You can speed things up by eliminating the DO loop in favor of a
> revised call to the COMPRESS function (although the "not index"
> method is safer if new characters are added).  For example:
>
>         data _null_;
>           alphastr='~`!@#$%^&*()-_=+[{]}\|;",<.>/?'||"'"||
>                    'qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm'||
>                    'QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM';
>           put strdata=;
>           strdata=compress(strdata,alphastr);
>         run;
>
>         /***** OR *****/
>
>         data _null_;
>           strdata='58durb864DMF951206VEb34*@4W';
>           strdata=compress(strdata,
>                            '~`!@#$%^&*()-_=+[{]}\|;",<.>/?'||"'"||
>                            'qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm'||
>                            'QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM');
>           put strdata=;
>         run;
 
Duh.  Rather than risking carpal tunnel, use:
 
        strdata=compress(strdata,compress(strdata,'0123456789'));
 
Hey, it's Monday...give me a break!
 
Tom
--
Thomas Kalfas, Consultant
Abbott Laboratories
 
E-mail: kalfast@pprd.abbott.com
 
Phone:  (847) 938-8101
Fax:    (847) 938-1736