Introduction to Regular Expressions in SAS (2014)

About This Book

Purpose

This book is intended for a wide audience of SAS users, from novice programmer to the very advanced. As not much has previously been published on this topic, many different skill levels can benefit from the content herein. However, the book has been written to ensure that novice programmers can immediately implement every element discussed.

Is This Book for You?

Of course, it is! Do you wish you could process unstructured data sources? Would you like to more effectively process semi-structured data sources? Do you want to one day leverage advanced text mining concepts within your Base SAS code? Of course, you do! This book lays the foundation for all of this and more, making it the ideal text for anyone wanting to enhance their programming prowess.

Prerequisites

Readers should be comfortable using and applying the SAS DATA step, basic PROCs (e.g., PROC PRINT), DO loops, and conditional processing concepts. Readers should be familiar with SAS arrays and the RETAIN statement.

Scope of This Book

This book covers all PRX functions and call routines.

This book does NOT cover advanced concepts requiring MACRO programming, PROC SQL, or system automation.

About the Examples

Software Used to Develop the Book’s Content

Base SAS (Microsoft Windows)

Example Code and Data

You can access the example code and data for this book by linking to its author page at http://support.sas.com/publishing/authors. Select the name of the author. Then, look for the cover thumbnail of this book, and select Example Code and Data to display the SAS programs that are included in this book.

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If you are unable to access the code through the website, e-mail saspress@sas.com.

Output and Graphics Used in This Book

All output used in this book was generated via the SAS log and PROC PRINT.

Additional Help

Although this book illustrates many analyses regularly performed in businesses across industries, questions specific to your aims and issues may arise. To fully support you, SAS Institute and SAS Press offer you the following help resources:

• About topics covered in this book, contact the author through SAS Press:

◦ Send questions by e-mail to saspress@sas.com; include the book title in your correspondence.

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• About topics in or beyond this book, post questions to the relevant SAS Support Communities at https://communities.sas.com/welcome.

• SAS Institute maintains a comprehensive website with up-to-date information. One page that is particularly useful to both the novice and the seasoned SAS user is its Knowledge Base. Search for relevant notes in the “Samples and SAS Notes” section of the Knowledge Base athttp://support.sas.com/resources.

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