Pattern Matching with SAS

This tutorial explains how to use regular expression language (pattern matching) with SAS.

Sample Data

data x;
infile datalines truncover;
input name $100.;
datalines;
Deepanshu
How are you, deepanshu
dipanshu
deepanshu is a good boy
My name is deepanshu
Deepanshu Bhalla
Deepanshuuu
DeepanshuBhalla
Bhalla Deepanshu
;
run;

Important Functions for Pattern Matching

1. PRXMATCH

Searches for a pattern match and returns the position at which the pattern is found.

PRXMATCH (perl-regular-expression, variable_name)

It returns the position at which the string begins. If there is no match, PRXMATCH returns a zero.

Example 1 :

data xx;
set x;
if prxmatch("/Deepanshu/", name) > 0 then flag = 1;
if prxmatch("/Deepanshu/i", name) > 0 then flag1 = 1;
if prxmatch("/^Deepanshu/i", name) > 0 then flag2 = 1;
if prxmatch("/\bDeepanshu\b/i", name) > 0 then flag3 = 1;
if prxmatch("/D[ai]panshu/i", name) > 0 then flag4 = 1;
if prxmatch("/D.panshu/i", name) > 0 then flag5 = 1;
proc print;
run;

:

Output : Pattern Matching

Important Points

1. The /i in the regular expression makes search case-insensitive.
2. The ^ in the regular expression tells SAS to search for the strings that starts with the search-string.
3. The \b in the regular expression tells SAS to match word boundary.
4. The \B in the regular expression tells SAS to match non-word boundary.
5. The [ai] in the regular expression searches any of the characters within the string.
6. The . in the regular expression tells SAS to take any of the characters within the string.