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Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 there are new functions that can be used to count specific characters, specific substrings, and words in a string.

COUNT will count the number of times a specific substring appears within a character string. Caution: If two occurrences of the specified substring overlap in the string, inconsistent results will be returned. For example, COUNT('boobooboo', 'booboo') might return a 1 or a 2.

COUNTC will count the number of times a specific character appears within a character string.

COUNTW will count the number of words that appear within a character string.

There are a few samples in the Full Code tab of this note.

In order to better understand the functions and the modifier options available, go to the following link in the SAS 9.2 documentation:

Operating System and Release Information

COUNT

/* count 'this' in the string and it is case sensitive */
/* this code will output a 3 to the log                */
data one;
  xyz='This is a thistle? Yes, this is a thistle.';
  howmanythis=count(xyz,'this');
  put howmanythis;
run;


/* count 'this' in the string and ignore the case */
/* this code will output a 4 to the log           */
data one;
  xyz='This is a thistle? Yes, this is a thistle.';
  howmanythis=count(xyz,'this','i');
  put howmanythis;
run;


COUNTC

/* count lower case 'b'                      */
/* the code above will output a 1 to the log */
data one;                         
  xyz='Baboons Eat Bananas     ';   
  howmanyb=countc(xyz,'b');         
  put howmanyb;                     
run;  


COUNTW
 
/* this code will output a 6 to the log */                           
data one;                                                
  x='a string of words to count';                        
  howmany=countw(x);                                     
  put howmany;                                           
run;