Scripting Guide - SAS

572 JSL Syntax Reference Appendix A
Character Functions
Substitute Into(string, substring, replacementString, ...)
Substitute Into(list, listItem, replacementItem, ...)
Substitute Into(Expr(sourceExpr), Expr(findExpr), Expr(replacementExpr),
...)
Description
This is a search and replace function, identical to Substitute() except in place. It searches for a
specific portion (second argument) of the source (first argument), and replaces it (third argument). The
first argument must be an L-value.
If a string, finds all matches to substring in the source string, and replaces them with the
replacementString.
If a list, finds all matches to listItem in the source list, and replaces them with the
replacementItem.
If an expression, finds all matches to the findExpr in the sourceExpr, and replaces them with the
replacementExpr. Note that all expressions must be enclosed within an Expr() function.
Arguments
string, list, sourceExpr A string, list, or expression in which to perform the substitution.
substring, listItem, findExpr A string, list item, or expression to be found in the source
string, list, or expression.
replacementString, replacementItem, replacementExpr A string, list item, or
expression to replace the found string, list item, or expression.
Substr(string, start, length)
Description
Extracts the characters that are the portion of the first argument beginning at the position given by the
second argument and ending based on the number of characters specified in the third argument. The
first argument can be a character column or value, or an expression evaluating to same. The starting
argument and the length argument can be numbers or expressions that evaluate to numbers.
Example
This example extracts the first name:
Substr("Katie Layman", 1, 5);
The function starts at position 1, reads through position 5, and ignores the remaining characters, which
yields “Katie.”
Trim("text")
Description
Produces a new character string from its argument, removing any trailing blanks.
Uppercase(string)
Description
Converts any lower case character found in the quoted string to the equivalent uppercase character.