I have one character variable (slogan) with values like this:

visa1-mast2-amex3; visa2-mast3-amex9; mast7-visa2-amex8; ....

that is, every value randomly takes 3 of (visa1-visa50, mast1-mast50, amex1-amex150) and combine with 2 "-" in between. It is Ok if the value is

visa1-visa1-visa1.

My problem is if the 3 components in any 2 values are the same, such as

visa1-mast2-amex3 and mast2-visa1-amex3,

I want to treat them as the same, taking 1 of the 2 values to represent them.

So far I have tried one idea. It works, but too complicated. The idea is to assign a value to each component in such as way that

1. comp1=substr(slogan, 1, 5); comp2=substr(slogan, 7,5); comp3=substr(slogan, 13,5); 2. if comp1="visa1" then tag1=1; else if comp1="visa2" then tag1=10; else if comp1="visa3" then tag1=100......; 3. if comp2="visa1" then tag2=1; else if comp2="visa2" then tag2=10; else if comp2="visa3" then tag2=100......;

then the total of tag1-tag3 is at a unique range to correspond to each unique original value in slogan (in this sense, the magnitude does not have to be 10). Finally, re-format the totals back using original Slogan values.

I would appreciate if someone can help with any better solution. I guess I am not the first person who has ever needed to do this, but I have no idea what keywords to use to query the SAS-L to find previous listings in this regard. Thank you in advance.

Again, my old email sophe@usa.net is no longer in use. Please use sophe88@yahoo.com for emails. Thanks.

Paula D