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Functions and CALL Routines

NOTPRINT Function



Searches a character string for a nonprintable character, and returns the first position at which that character is found.
Category: Character
Restriction: I18N Level 2

Syntax
Arguments
Details
Comparisons
Examples
See Also

Syntax

NOTPRINT(string <,start>)


Arguments

string

is the character constant, variable, or expression to search.

start

is an optional numeric constant, variable, or expression with an integer value that specifies the position at which the search should start and the direction in which to search.


Details

The results of the NOTPRINT function depend directly on the translation table that is in effect (see TRANTAB System Option) and indirectly on the ENCODING System Option and the LOCALE System Option in SAS National Language Support (NLS): Reference Guide.

The NOTPRINT function searches a string for the first occurrence of a non-printable character. If such a character is found, NOTPRINT returns the position in the string of that character. If no such character is found, NOTPRINT returns a value of 0.

If you use only one argument, NOTPRINT begins the search at the beginning of the string. If you use two arguments, the absolute value of the second argument, start, specifies the position at which to begin the search. The direction in which to search is determined in the following way:

NOTPRINT returns a value of zero when one of the following is true:


Comparisons

The NOTPRINT function searches a character string for a non-printable character. The ANYPRINT function searches a character string for a printable character.


Examples

You can execute the following program to show the control characters that are identified by the NOTPRINT function.

data test; 
do dec=0 to 255;
   byte=byte(dec);
   hex=put(dec,hex2.);
   notprint=notprint(byte);
   output;
 end;

 proc print data=test;
 run;


See Also

Function:

ANYPRINT Function

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