SAS convert string to number with input function

Question

how can i convert a string with only numbers to numeric, i have this:

mydataset:

StringNumber
25 
270

the length is $3

when i use this code, removing blanks.

data eg1;
set   myDataSet;
number=input(strip(StrinNumber),8.);
run;

in the result the first obs is missing, and the second is 270 (ok).

i tried:

number=input(combpl(StrinNumber),8.);
number=input(compress(StrinNumber),8.);

and the result is same

Answer 1

There's no particular reason your code shouldn't have worked, but in any event this is simpler:

data test;
length stringNumber $3;
input StringNumber $;
datalines;
25 
270
;;;;
run;

data want;
set test;
number = input(stringNumber,3.);
put number=;
run;

The 3. is the length of the string, and you don't need to strip blanks off.

If this doesn't work, I would guess your 25 is not truly the number 25 plus a space, but instead has some non-space character (including NBSP, 'A0'x , which is common on data grabbed from the web).

You can try:

data want;
set test;
number = input(compress(stringNumber,,'kd'),3.);
put number=;
run;

which will remove all non-digit characters from the string. If you're confident in your string having only numbers and spaces-of-some-form, then this should be safe; if it might contain other characters which might validly indicate a record you don't want (including things like "1.3" where this will return "13"), this could be risky without more detailed coding.