Work with Character Functions

This section shows how to use some of the more complex character functions that are described in the JSL Syntax Reference.

Concat

In the Concat function, expressions yielding names are treated like character strings, but globals that have the name values are evaluated. The following example demonstrates that if you have a stored name value, you need to either use Char before storing it in a global, or Name Expr on the global name.

n = { abc };

//result is an error message that mno is unresolved

m = expr(mno);

c = Name Expr(m) || "xyz";

Concat Items() converts a list of string expressions into a single string, with each item separated by a delimiter. If unspecified, the delimiter is a blank. Its syntax is

resultString = Concat Items ({list of strings}, <“delimiter string”>);

For example,

a = {“ABC”, “DEF”, “HIJ”};

result = Concat Items(a, “/”);

returns

“ABC/DEF/HIJ”

Alternatively,

result = Concat Items(a);

returns

“ABC DEF HIJ”

Munger

Munger works many different ways, depending on what you specify for its arguments:

Munger(string, offset, find | length, <replace>);

Munger behaviors for various types of arguments
Find, length, and replace arguments	Example
If you specify a string as the find and specify no replace string, Munger returns the position (after offset) of the first occurrence find string.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 1, "quick"); 5
If you specify a positive integer as the length and specify no replace string, Munger returns the characters from offset to offset + length.	Munger("the quick brown fox",1,5); "the q"
If you specify a string as the find and specify a replace string, Munger replaces the first occurrence after offset of text with replace.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 1, "quick", "fast"); "the fast brown fox"
If you specify a positive integer as the length and specify a replace string, Munger replaces the characters from offset to offset + length with replace.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 1, 5, "fast"); "fastuick brown fox"
If you specify a positive integer as the length, and offset + length exceeds the length of text, Munger either returns text from offset to the end or replaces that portion of text with the replace string, if it exists.	Munger("the quick brown fox",5,25); "quick brown fox" Munger("the quick brown fox",5,25, "fast"); "the fast"
If you specify zero as the length and specify no replace string, Munger returns a blank string.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 1, 0); ""
If you specify zero as the length and specify a replace string, the string is inserted before the offset position.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 1, 0, "see "); "see the quick brown fox"
If you specify a negative integer as the length value and specify no replace string, Munger returns all characters from the offset to the end of the string.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 5, -5); "quick brown fox"
If you specify a negative integer for length and specify a replace string, Munger replaces all characters from the offset to the end with the replace string.	Munger("the quick brown fox", 5, -5, "fast"); "the fast"

Repeat

The Repeat function makes copies of its first argument into a result. The second (and sometimes a third) argument is the number of repeats, where 1 means a single copy.

If the first argument evaluates to a character value or list, the result is that many copies.

If the first argument evaluates to a number or matrix, the result is a matrix. The second argument is the number of row repeats, and a third argument can specify the number of column repeats. If only two arguments are specified, the number of column repeats is 1.

repeat([1 2, 3 4],2,3)

The repeat function is compatible with the function of the same name in the SAS/IML language, but is incompatible with the SAS character DATA step function, which repeats one more time than this function.