How do you remove leading and trailing spaces in SAS macro variable?

To trim macro variables %trim and %left function can be used to remove trailing and leading space.

How do you get rid of trailing blanks in SAS?

The advantage of using the STRIP function is that it runs faster than TRIM(LEFT) or TRIMN(LEFT) (SAS OnlineDocĀ® 9.1. 3). If you have a large data set, it is recommended to use the STRIP function to remove leading and trailing blanks. Another useful function to deal with blanks is the COMPRESS function.

How do you remove spaces from a variable name in SAS?

If you re-run your import code with this option: options validvarname = V7; It will automatically rename your SAS variables to replace spaces with underscores.

How do I get rid of leading and trailing spaces in SAS?

See also the doc:

  1. STRIP function – removes all leading and trailing blanks.
  2. TRIM function – removes all trailing blanks.
  3. COMPRESS function – removes all blanks (by default – specify options to remove other chars)

How do I compress a macro variable in SAS?

There are two SAS Autocall macros that can compress multiple blanks and remove leading and trailing blanks. The CMPRES and QCMPRES macros compress multiple blanks and remove leading and trailing blanks. If the argument might contain a special character or mnemonic operator, listed below, use %QCMPRES.

What does Strip mean in SAS?

The STRIP function is similar to the TRIM function. It removes both the leading and trailing spaces from a character string. Example. The data set above contains 2 columns: VAR1 and VAR2. Both columns contain character values that have leading and trailing spaces.

Does SAS allow spaces in variable names?

Sol : SAS would return an error “variable name is not valid” as SAS by default cannot contain blanks or special characters.

How do I remove a special character from a variable in SAS?

The COMPRESS function is typically used to remove unwanted characters from a variable, but in this example, the characters to keep are specified. In the second argument of the COMPRESS function, specify characters that you want to keep in X, and specify in the third argument any modifiers.

What is Sysfunc SAS?

The new macro function %SYSFUNC (SASĀ® rel 6.12) allows access by the macro processor to most data step functions and several SCL functions. Solutions to many common macro tasks can now be simpler and more efficient. %SYSFUNC also allows the macro processor to do floating point arithmetic.