topic Re: Check if a column has numeric data in Discussions

Check if a column has numeric data

jan_solo — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:01:18 GMT

Hi everyone,

I loop over columns in a table collected from the DB. Some of them have no data in them (leading to empty charts). Is there a way to check if a column has numeric values?

thx guys,

Jan

Re: Check if a column has numeric data

rw9 — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:15:40 GMT

Hi,

Anydigit(string), is 0 if doesn't contain digits, 1 if it does.

If you want to check if they are convertible to number then do:

if anyalpha(string)=0 then no upper or lower characters so assume number.

If you have special characters then compress them out.

E.g.:

data have;

attrib my_string format=$20.;

my_string="12345"; output;

my_string="-12345"; output;

my_string="ABC12345"; output;

run;

data want;

set have;

attrib my_num_var format=best.;

have_any_digit=anydigit(my_string);

have_convertible=anyalpha(compress(my_string,"-+."));

if have_convertible=0 then my_num_var=input(my_string,best.);

run;

Re: Check if a column has numeric data

jan_solo — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:33:50 GMT

Thank you,

It seems that my version of JMP (11.1.1 x64) doesn't recognize the Anydigit function, however your answer led straigth to my answer:

ColMinValue = Col Minimum( :MyColumn );

Is Missing(ColMinValue) -> true if there is no value for ColMinValue.

Thx!!!

Jan