"Choate, Paul@DDS" wrote: > Heidi - > > You'll need to test each variable a1-a17 (possibly with an array) or > concatenate them and test the concatenation. This concatenates, > removes all the a, b, and c's and compares: > > data test; > input a1 $ a2 $ ...snip...... a17 $; > > if length(cats(of a1-a17))> length(compress(cats(of a1-a17),'abc')) > then delete;

Due to the length of the variables being $8, you will run into false deletions.

E.g. a1='abc'; a2='aa';

This is more robust.

_all_ = '00'x || catx('00'x, of a1-a17) || '00'x;

array block[3] $1 ('a', 'b', 'c'); do _i_ = 1 to dim(block); if index (_all_, cats('00'x,block[_i_],'00x') ) then delete; end;

-- Richard A. DeVenezia http://www.devenezia.com/