Date:         Fri, 22 Nov 2002 18:29:32 +0000
Reply-To:     sashole@bellsouth.net
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Paul Dorfman <paul_dorfman@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Parsing a comma delimited column
Comments: To: bertolini.1@OSU.EDU
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

----Original Message Follows----
From: Larry Bertolini <bertolini.1@OSU.EDU>
But looking at these two expressions (and assuming that we have
already specified "length foo $6;"):
   foo = substr('1234567890123456', 1) ;
   foo = put ('1234567890123456', $6.) ;
It  seems that, in both cases, we only want the first 6 characters;
in which case, why not just:
   foo = '1234567890123456';
which, on my system, takes only 40% of the CPU as
the "put" function.

Larry,

Absolutely true, but of course in general we would have a string variable as
the first argument to SUBSTR() rather than a character literal. It would
rarely make any sense to use any function to manipulate a literal string
value, except for the REPEAT().

Kind regards,
----------------------
Paul M. Dorfman
Jacksonville, FL
----------------------



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