Functions and CALL Routines |
Category: | Character |
Syntax | |
Arguments | |
Details | |
Comparisons | |
Examples | |
See Also |
Syntax |
FIRST(string) |
specifies a character string.
Details |
In a DATA step, the default length of the target variable for the FIRST function is 1.
The FIRST function returns a string with a length of 1. If string has a length of 0, then the FIRST function returns a single blank.
Comparisons |
The FIRST function returns the same result as CHAR(string, 1) and SUBPAD(string, 1, 1). While the results are the same, the default length of the target variable is different.
Examples |
The following example shows the results of using the FIRST function.
options pageno=1 ps=64 ls=80 nodate; data test; string1="abc"; result1=first(string1); string2=""; result2=first(string2); run; proc print noobs data=test; run;
Output from the FIRST Function
The SAS System 1 string1 result1 string2 result2 abc a
See Also |
Functions: |
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