Cody’s Data Cleaning Techniques Using SAS® Software

Introduction

There are some basic operations that need to be routinely performed when dealing with character data values. You may have a character variable that can take on only certain allowable values, such as ‘M’ and ‘F’ for gender. You may also have a character variable that can take on numerous values but the values must fit a certain form, such as a single letter followed by two or three digits. This chapter shows you several ways that you can use SAS software to perform validity checks on character variables.