title: How Do I Convert A String Into a Number in SAS?
body: <p>I'm pretty new to SAS and struggling with the type conversions. They seem to be anything but intuitive to me. <em>I need to do this within SAS PROC SQL statements.</em></p>
  
  <p>Can someone help me figure out the best way to convert a field that is formatted like the below into a number so it can have some addition/subtraction performed and be compared to a numerical field?</p>
  
  <p>Field format example: '      +3,820.00'</p>
  
  <p>I've used strip() to get rid of the + sign, comma, and spaces and then input() to make it a number, but I'm not having any luck.</p>