Rune ,

Screw the Perl RegEx you already gave all you need iin SAS functions which work faster than RegEx in simple cases like these:

Data Need1 Need2 ; Set Have ;

If ( Verify( String , '0' ) = 0 ) Then Output Need1 ;

Else If ( String =: '0' ) Or ( Substr( String , 2 , 1 ) = '0' ) Then Output Need2 ; Run ;

Toby Dunn

Comprimise is like telling a lie, it gets easier and easier. Each comprimise you make, that becomes your standard.

Perfection doesnt exist, once you reach it, its not perfect anymore. It means something else.

From: Rune Runnestø <rune@FASTLANE.NO> Reply-To: Rune Runnestø <rune@FASTLANE.NO> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: regex challenge Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:43:33 +0200

Hi, I am trying to accomplish two things. First, I want to pick up the records where alle the signs in STRING are zeros. Second, I want to pick up records where the first and/or the second sign are zeros, but where the rest of STRING does *not only* contain '0'. I will create a data set for each purpose. The dataset MYDS1 is an attempt to solve the first task with a regex, but it doesn't work. It picks up all 4 records.

The dataset MYDS2 is an attempt to solve the second task, but there too all 4 records are picked up.

Does anyone see a solution to those tasks ? Doesn't necessarily have to be done by a regex, but why not ?

Regards, Rune

data myds1; if _n_ = 1 then re = prxparse('/[^1-9]/'); retain re; input string $char11.; if prxmatch(re, string) gt 0 then output; datalines; 00974243741 00000000000 00966707674 00000000000 run;

data myds2; if _n_ = 1 then re = prxparse('/(0|00)[^1-9]/'); retain re; input string $char11.; if prxmatch(re, string) gt 0 then output; datalines; 00974243741 00000000000 00966707674 00000000000 run;

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