STRIP | trimws

Character Functions

Overview

Removes leading and trailing white spaces from character strings.

⚠ Behavior Difference

Behavior is the same. Both remove leading and trailing spaces only.

Syntax Comparison

SAS

strip(var)

trimws(var)

Details

Good practice to apply to character variables before comparison or merge to avoid formatting inconsistencies.

ExampleCode

SAS Example

SAS

data dm;
  input USUBJID $ SITEID $;
datalines;
101-001    001
;
run;

data dm2;
  set dm;
  SITEID_CLEAN = strip(SITEID);
run;

R Example

library(dplyr)

dm <- data.frame(
  USUBJID="101-001",
  SITEID=" 001 "
)

dm <- dm %>%
  mutate(SITEID_CLEAN = trimws(SITEID))

Output Dataset


USUBJID   SITEID   SITEID_CLEAN
101-001   001      001