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The INDEXC function in SAS is used to search for a character string within a character string and returns the position of the first occurrence of the search string. It takes three arguments; the character string to be searched, the string to be searched for, and the position to start the search from. It returns the position of the first occurrence of the searched string, or a 0 if the searched string is not found.
You can use the INDEXC function in SAS to return the position of the first occurrence of any individual character within a string.
This function uses the following basic syntax:
INDEXC(source, excerpt)
where:
- source: The string to analyze
- excerpt: The string of characters to search for within source
The following example shows how to use this function in practice.
Example: Using the INDEXC Function in SAS
Suppose we have the following dataset in SAS that contains a column of names:
/*create dataset*/
data original_data;
input name $25.;
datalines;
Andy Lincoln Bernard
Barren Michael Smith
Chad Simpson Arnolds
Derrick Smith Henrys
Eric Millerton Smith
Frank Giovanni Goode
;
run;
/*view dataset*/
proc print data=original_data;
We can use the INDEXC function to search for the position of the first occurrence of the characters x, y or z:
/*find position of first occurrence of either x, y or z in name*/
data new_data;
set original_data;
first_xyz = indexc(name, 'xyz');
run;
/*view results*/
proc print data=new_data;
The new column called first_xyz displays the position of the first occurrence of the characters x, y or z in the name column.
If none of these three characters are present in the name column, then the INDEXC function simply returns a value of 0.
For example, from the output we can see:
The position of the first occurrence of x, y or z in the first row is in position 4. We can see that the character in position 4 in the first row is a y.
And so on.
The Difference BETWEEN INDEX and INDEXC Functions
The INDEX function in SAS returns the position of the first occurrence of a particular substring in another string.
The following example illustrates the difference between the INDEX and INDEXC functions:
/*create new dataset*/
data new_data;
set original_data;
index_smith = index(name, 'Smith');
indexc_smith = indexc(name, 'Smith');
run;
/*view new dataset*/
proc print data=new_data;
The index_smith column displays the position of the first occurrence of the substring ‘Smith’ in the name column.
The indexc_smith column displays the position of the first occurrence of the letters s, m, i, t or h in the name column.
For example, from the output we can see:
The substring ‘Smith’ never occurs in the first name so index_smith returns a value of 0.
The letter i occurs in the 7th position of the first name so indexc_smith returns a value of 7.
And so on.
The following tutorials explain how to use other common functions in SAS: