What is returned by the FIND function if the specified substring is not found?

The FIND function in SAS is designed to search for a specified substring within a string. When the substring you are looking for does not exist in the given string, the function returns a value of 0. This behavior indicates that there was no occurrence of the substring found within the source string.

In SAS, returning 0 from the FIND function signifies that the search was unsuccessful, and aligns with the general logic used in programming where a search operation often returns 0 to signify "not found." Therefore, understanding this return value can help you anticipate how to handle search results in data manipulation and string analysis.

The other options would not accurately reflect the function’s behavior: a blank string does not indicate a search result, a 1 typically would signify the position of the first character (which can't be the case if the substring isn't found), and a -1 may indicate an error condition in certain functions or contexts but does not apply here.