Concatenation Functions In SAS : CAT, CATT, CATS, CATX, CATQ

Hi All,

Today i am explaining something about to add two or more character strings in SAS. Adding two or more character or string which simply notify towards the CONCATENATION.

We can simply define concatenation as to put two or more strings together is concatenation. Here we would not discuss about the concatenation operators which are || (vertical bar) and !! (Exclamation mark ) but we would discuss on some concatenation functions in SAS which are CAT, CATT, CATQ, CATS and CATX.

All the Concatenation functions takes two or more arguments and concatenate the strings or variables. For all concatenation functions (if applies) removes the leading or trailing blanks from resultant concatenated string before the concatenating of strings.

Note : Whenever we use concatenation operator || or !!, The Length of the resultant string would be the sum of the lengths of all individual strings we are adding or concatenating.

CAT Function in SAS : It concatenates the two or more character strings and does not remove leading or trailing blanks. The resultant concatenated string would be a character string.

Syntax : Result_cat =CAT (String1, String2,.....StringN);

CATT Function in SAS : It concatenates the two or more character strings and removes trailing blanks from the resultant string or variable. The resultant concatenated string would be a character string.

Syntax : Result_catt =CATT(String1, String2,.....StringN);

CATS Function in SAS : It concatenates the two or more character strings and removes all leading and trailing blanks from the resultant string or variable. The resultant concatenated string would be a character string.

Synatax : Result_cats =CATS(String1, String2,.......StringN);

CATX Function in SAS : it concatenates the two or more character strings and adds a delimiters after each string's value. It also removes leading and trailing from resultant string or variable. The resultant concatenated string would be a character string. We can say that CATX is same as CATS just it adds a delimiter between values being concatenated.

Syntax: Result_catx=CATX('Delimiter', String1, String2,,..... , StringN);

CATQ Function in SAS : It concatenates the two or more character or numeric strings by adding a delimiter and quotation mark to that string which contain the delimiter. CATQ function is similar to the CATX function excepts it also adds quotation marks.

Syntax: Result_catQ=CATQ(Modifier,'Delimiter',String1, String2,.....StringN);

Modifiers for CATQ function:-

1. 1 or ' : For single quotation mark


2. 2 or " : For double quotation mark


3. a or A : For adding quotation mark to all of the arguments


4. c or C : For comma as a delimiter


5. d or D : Tells that we have specified delimiter argument


6. h or H : For horizontal tab as a delimiter

For all concatenate functions:-

• The Default LENGTH of returned variable from any CAT* function would be 200 bytes, if Length is not previously specified to the assigned variable of CAT function


• CAT* function always returns a value to a variable


• For numeric variables / arguments, CAT* function removes trailing and leading after formatting numeric arguments to the BESTw. format


• The returned values from CAT, CATS, CATT and CATX are normally equivalent with the resultant values of concatenation operator (with certain combination like : Trim, Left, Strip) except in length


• CAT, CATS,CATT and CATX functions are faster than using TRIM and LEFT functions


• In CATQ, if we do not use C,D or H as modifiers, then CATQ would use blank as delimiter