Like Operator in SAS Programming

LIKE Operator: Pattern Matching

The LIKE operator used to select data by comparing the values of a character variable to a specified pattern. It is case sensitive.

Task 1: To select all students with a name that starts with the letter S.

There are two special characters patterns available for specifying a pattern:

percent sign (%) – Wildcard Character
underscore ( _ ) – Fill in the blanks

data readin; 
input name $ Section $ Score; 
cards; 
Raj  A 80 
Atul . 77 
Priya . 45 
Sandy A 67 
David B 39 
Rahul . 95 
Sahil C 84 
Savitri B 65 
; 
run; 
  
data readin1; 
set readin; 
where name like 'S%'; 
run; 

Output:

In a given dataset, the above statements would produce the same result in both cases.

Examples:

```
where name like '%ul';
```
Output:

It contains all the data where the name ends with ‘ul’.
```
where name like '_ah%';
```
Output:

It contains all the data where the name contains atleast 3 characters, which must contain ‘ah’ at second place.
```
where name like '_a___';
```
Output:

It contains all the data where the name contains atleast 5 characters, which must contain ‘a’ at second place.

My Personal Notes

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ShubhamMaurya3

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