Date:         Fri, 1 Aug 2003 13:54:10 -0400
Reply-To:     "Richard A. DeVenezia" <radevenz@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Richard A. DeVenezia" <radevenz@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      Re: Compress multiple spaces _outside_ quoted values ?
Comments: To: Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.com>,
          "Droogendyk, Harry" <Harry.Droogendyk@CIBC.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"

From: "Ian Whitlock" <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.com>
To: "'Droogendyk, Harry'" <Harry.Droogendyk@CIBC.COM>;
<SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Cc: <radevenz@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 1:25 PM
Subject: RE: Compress multiple spaces _outside_ quoted values ?


> Harry,
>
> I am not sure how elegance is defined here.  I see it as a very nice
> solution.  However, some tightening up is needed for the counting of
quotes
> is needed.  With the line
>
> Matched "double quotes  in  this  string", "what   to   do  with       "
>
> your code produced the line
>
> n=Matched "double quotes  in  this  string", "what   to   do  with       "
"
> " " " " " "
>
> Fix:
>
>   _num_quotes = length(string||"*")
>                 - length(compress(string||"*",'"'));
>
> Richard,
>
> Can a string have, "" meaning a double quote internal to a quoted part?
>
> IanWhitlock@westat.com

The string is a dynamically constructed where clause that is applied to a
Sas Data Set Model via _setWhere()  and displayed elsewhere.
I prefer not to have extraneous spaces showing.

Q = double quote
q = single quote

So, yes, the string can have QQ meaning Q internal to a Q'ed string, or
qq meaning q internal to a q'ed string

My string might have the value
LName = 'O''Connor'   and    FName = 'James'

Comment   =   "Agreed  ""in principal"""   or   Comment = "Agreed ""in
principal"""

Would be nice if SAS ever surfaced parts of the tokenizer to a datastep/scl
function.