What is the purpose of the SCAN function?

The SCAN function is specifically designed to extract a particular word from a string based on defined delimiters. When you use SCAN, you specify the string you are working with and the position of the word you wish to extract. This function processes the string, identifies words separated by the specified delimiters (such as spaces, punctuation, or other characters), and returns the desired word based on its position.

For example, given the string "SAS is fun," if you want to extract the second word ("is"), you would use SCAN with the appropriate parameters. This functionality is particularly useful when dealing with text data where you need to parse and analyze textual information efficiently.

The other options present different functions that do not pertain to the primary purpose of SCAN, which is focused on word extraction, making the second option the accurate choice.