sas compress function

Guri Bee

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19-10-2024

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Compressing Data in SAS: A Guide to the COMPRESS Function

In the world of data analysis, efficient data storage and transmission are paramount. SAS, a powerful statistical software package, offers a versatile tool for data compression – the COMPRESS function. This function allows you to shrink the size of your datasets by removing unnecessary characters and spaces, optimizing storage and reducing transmission times.

What is the COMPRESS Function?

The COMPRESS function in SAS takes a character string as input and returns a compressed version of the string. It achieves this by removing any unnecessary characters and replacing repeated characters with a single occurrence. This results in a shorter and more efficient representation of the original string.

Key Features:

• Character Removal: The COMPRESS function can remove specific characters from a string, such as spaces, punctuation marks, or even entire character sets.
• Space Handling: By default, the COMPRESS function removes leading and trailing spaces, as well as multiple consecutive spaces.
• Customization: You can specify which characters to compress by providing a list of characters to be removed.

Syntax:

COMPRESS(string, [characters]);

Parameters:

• string: The character string you want to compress.
• characters: An optional list of characters to remove. If not specified, the default is to remove spaces, punctuation marks, and control characters.

Practical Examples:

Let's illustrate the functionality of the COMPRESS function with a few examples:

1. Removing Spaces:

data example;
  string1 = "This is a string with spaces";
  string2 = compress(string1);
  put string1= string2=;
run;

Output:

string1=This is a string with spaces 
string2=Thisisastringwithspaces

As you can see, the COMPRESS function removed all spaces from the string.

2. Compressing Specific Characters:

data example2;
  string1 = "This string contains $ special characters !";
  string2 = compress(string1, '$!');
  put string1= string2=;
run;

Output:

string1=This string contains $ special characters ! 
string2=This string contains  special characters 

In this example, the COMPRESS function removed the characters '