The easiest way to remove leading zeros in a character variable in SAS is to use the INPUT function to convert the variable to a numeric variable, which automatically removes leading zeros.

This function uses the following basic syntax:

data new_data;
    set original_data;
    no_zeros = input(some_column, comma9.);
run;

The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.

Example: Remove Leading Zeros in SAS

Suppose we have the following dataset in SAS that shows the total sales made by various retail stores:

/*create dataset*/
data original_data;
    input store $ sales $;
    datalines;
A 055
B 145
C 199
D 0000443
E 0093
F 00004302
G 38
H 0055
;
run;

/*view dataset*/
proc printdata=original_data;

We can use the following code to remove all leading zeros from values in the sales column:

/*remove leading zeros in sales column*/
data new_data;
    set original_data;
    no_zeros = input(sales, comma9.);
run;

/*view results*/
proc printdata=new_data;

Notice that all leading zeros have been removed from the values in the no_zeros column.

Note that the new no_zeros column is a numeric column.

If you would instead like to keep it as a character column, you can wrap the PUT function around the INPUT function as follows:

/*remove leading zeros in sales column*/
data new_data;
    set original_data;
    no_zeros = put(input(sales, comma9.), 8.);
run;

/*view results*/
proc printdata=new_data;

If we use use proc contents to view the data type of each variable in the dataset, we’ll see that no_zeros is a character variable:

/*view data type of each variable in new dataset*/
proc contentsdata=new_data;

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in SAS: