Date:         Wed, 14 May 1997 16:30:05 +0000
Reply-To:     "Aaron Dukes, qq" <adukes@ATTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Aaron Dukes, qq" <adukes@ATTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Retaining a character variable and concatenation
Comments: To: hu.ang@RHIGROUP.COM
Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii

What is happening is that the new values for hosp occupy positions 201-203 in the temporarily constructed string.  When this is assigned back to a string of (maximum) length 200, these positions are dropped, soyou get what you had before.
 
Change
 
else hosplist = hosplist || hosp;
 
to
 
else hosplist = trim(hosplist) || hosp;
 
and you should get what you expected.
 
HTH,
======================================
Aaron L. Dukes,
Consultant Statistician & SAS Developer
 
Breakthru Systems Development, Inc.
 
adukes@pdd.att.com
bsd@idt.net
 
(201)895-2365
(201)443-2836
======================================
 
 
----------
From:   Hu Ang
Sent:   Wednesday, May 14, 1997 11:34 AM
To:     Multiple recipients of list SAS-L
Subject:        Retaining a character variable and concatenation
 
Hi SAS users,
 
    I am trying to concatenate the character strings in each observation
of a data set (please see the following code). With a numeric varaible
cnt I get 3 at the end. The string varaible hosplist keeps the value
'abc' all the way to the end while I expected to see 'abcopqxyz'. Any
thoughts? TIA
 
code:
____________________________
data temp;
    infile cards;
    input hosp $3.;
cards;
abc
opq
xyz
;
run;
 
data _null_;
   retain hosplist;
   retain cnt;
 
   length hosplist $200;
 
   set temp;
   if _n_ = 1 then hosplist = hosp;
   else hosplist = hosplist || hosp;
 
   if _n_ = 1 then cnt = 1;
   else cnt + 1;
 
   put _all_;
run;
______________________________
 
LOG:
_____________________________
1    data temp;
2        infile cards;
3        input hosp $3.;
4    cards;
 
NOTE: The data set WORK.TEMP has 3 observations and 1 variables.
NOTE: The DATA statement used 1.24 seconds.
 
 
8    ;
9    run;
10
11   data _null_;
12      retain hosplist;
13      retain cnt;
14
15      length hosplist $200;
16
17      set temp;
18      if _n_ = 1 then hosplist = hosp;
19      else hosplist = hosplist || hosp;
20
21      if _n_ = 1 then cnt = 1;
22      else cnt + 1;
23
24      put _all_;
25   run;
 
HOSPLIST=abc CNT=1 HOSP=abc _ERROR_=0 _N_=1
HOSPLIST=abc CNT=2 HOSP=opq _ERROR_=0 _N_=2
HOSPLIST=abc CNT=3 HOSP=xyz _ERROR_=0 _N_=3
NOTE: The DATA statement used 0.24 seconds.
_____________________________
Sincerely,
Hu Ang