Functions and CALL Routines

NOTGRAPH Function

Searches a character string for a non-graphical character, and returns the first position at which that character is found.

Category:	Character
Restriction:	I18N Level 2

Syntax
Arguments
Details
Comparisons
Examples
	Example 1: Searching a String for Non-Graphical Characters
	Example 2: Identifying Control Characters by Using the NOTGRAPH Function
See Also

Syntax

NOTGRAPH(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 NOTGRAPH 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 NOTGRAPH function searches a string for the first occurrence of a non-graphical character. A graphical character is defined as any printable character other than white space. If such a character is found, NOTGRAPH returns the position in the string of that character. If no such character is found, NOTGRAPH returns a value of 0.

If you use only one argument, NOTGRAPH 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:

If the value of start is positive, the search proceeds to the right.
If the value of start is negative, the search proceeds to the left.
If the value of start is less than the negative length of the string, the search begins at the end of the string.

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

The character that you are searching for is not found.
The value of start is greater than the length of the string.
The value of start = 0.

Comparisons

The NOTGRAPH function searches a character string for a non-graphical character. The ANYGRAPH function searches a character string for a graphical character.

Examples

Example 1: Searching a String for Non-Graphical Characters

The following example uses the NOTGRAPH function to search a string for a non-graphical character.

data _null_;    
   string='Next = _n_ + 12E3;';  
   j=0;  
   do until(j=0);  
      j=notgraph(string,j+1);  
      if j=0 then put +3 "That's all";  
      else do;          
         c=substr(string,j,1);  
         put +3 j= c=;  
      end; 
   end;
run;

The following lines are written to the SAS log:

   j=5 c= 
   j=7 c= 
   j=11 c= 
   j=13 c= 
   That's all

Example 2: Identifying Control Characters by Using the NOTGRAPH Function

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

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

 proc print data=test;
 run;