What does the SCAN function do in SAS?

The SCAN function in SAS is specifically designed to return a specific word from a character string. It operates by extracting the words from the string based on specified delimiters, which are typically spaces, commas, or other characters that separate words. The function takes two primary arguments: the string from which to extract the word and the position of the word to return.

For example, if you have a string like "SAS programming is fun" and you want to extract the second word, you would use SCAN with the appropriate arguments to return "programming." This focused functionality is essential for data manipulation and analysis, allowing users to handle text data effectively by easily accessing individual components within strings.

The other choices, while they deal with string manipulation, do not accurately describe the purpose of the SCAN function. Counting words, joining strings, or removing characters are tasks that are handled by other, different functions in SAS, further emphasizing SCAN's unique role in extracting specific words from strings.