I have a macro variable, &myvar, but it won't resolve when I try to put it in a data step variable. Why won't it, and what can I do to fix this?
%let myvar=Hello, world;
data _null_;
x='&myvar.';
put x=;
run;
Macro variables in SAS won't resolve when they are in single quotes, '&myvar'. They need to be in double quotes, "&myvar", in order to resolve properly.
If you need to have single quotes and a resolved macro variable, you have a few options, but the simplest is:
%str(%'&myvar.%')
The %' inside of %str will place a single quote character (or apostrophe) in the text string by itself without causing it to be quoted.
data _null_;
x="%str(%'&myvar.%')";
put x=;
run;
or
%let myvar2 = %str(%'&myvar.%');
In SAS 9.4M6 or higher version, you can use %tslit() to achieve the same function.
%let myvar=Hello, world;
data _null_;
x=%tslit(%superq(myvar));
put x=;
run;
%put %tslit(%superq(myvar));
x=Hello, world
'Hello, world'
This is a macro pre-defined in SAS. Here is the documentation about it:
https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lebaseutilref&docsetTarget=n1phgnraoodvpln1bm941n44yq7q.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en
Related
Is this possible to pass a string with macro trigger as the macro parameter?
Please see the example code below:
options mprint;
%let string5='%abc%def%';
%macro test(string);
data _null_;
call execute('%test2('||&string.||')');
run;
%mend;
%macro test2(string2);
data test3;
a=%str(%')&string2.%str(%');
run;
%mend;
%test(&string5);
This code ran successfully but it tried to invoke the macro %abc and %def, which resulted in warnings.
If I tried to put it into quoting to mask the string, it gave syntax error, as shown below:
options mprint;
%let string5='%abc%def%';
%macro test(string);
data _null_;
call execute('%test2('||%superQ(string)||')');
run;
%mend;
%macro test2(string2);
data test3;
a=%str(%')&string2.%str(%');
run;
%mend;
%test(&string5);
ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: a name, a quoted string, a numeric constant, a datetime constant, a missing value, arrayname, (, +, -, INPUT, NOT, PUT, ^, _NEW_, ~.
Is there a way to fix this without warnings?
Thanks in advance!
Try this:
%let string5='%abc%def%';
%macro test(string);
data _null_;
call execute('%test2('||%nrstr("&string.")||')');
run;
%mend;
%macro test2(string2);
data test3;
a=%nrquote(&string2.);
run;
%mend;
%test(&string5);
It is usually simple enough in the macro to protect against special characters. For example you can use the %superq() function to quote an existing macro variables value.
where name like %unquote(%str(%')%superq(parm1)%str(%'))
Or use the symget() function in a data step to get the value without needing to expand the macro at all.
pattern = quote(symget('parm1'),"'");
But the hard part is making the macro call. You need to protect the characters to get the macro call to run. You can use similar functions in the macro call.
One useful thing to do is to instruct users to pass the parameter value as a quoted string and then the macro code you can remove the quotes when they are not needed.
%macro mymacro(parm1=);
%let parm1=%qsysfunc(dequote(&parm1));
...
%mend;
%mymacro(parm1='fred%')
Or you could ask them to pass the value by name.
%macro mymacro(mvar=);
%local pattern ;
%let pattern=%superq(&mvar);
...
%mend ;
%let my_pattern=%qsysfunc(dequote('fred%'));
%mymacro(mvar=my_pattern)
If this is already working the way you want and you just want to suppress this one warning message, you could consider setting option nomerror; before you run the section of code in question and then setting it back again afterwards.
Just update the final solution I choose. I gave up the way to pass macro parameters between different macros, instead I passed the macro variable name as a string. Sample codes are as below:
options mprint;
%let string5='%abc%def%';
%macro test(string);
data _null_;
call execute('%test2('||&string.||')');
run;
%mend;
%macro test2(string2);
data test3;
a=&&&string2.;
run;
%mend;
%test('string5');
I have a SAS dataset with values
yyyymm
201605
201606
201607
201608
201609
I am trying to find a way to pass these values one at a time to macro such that
do while dataset still has value
%macro passdata(yyyymm);
end
How can I do this in SAS. Can someone please help with a sample/code snippet.
As mentioned by the prior comment, a way to pass parameters is through call execute routine. Note that this must be done in datastep environment. The lines are read from the set you input.
You can input multiple variables. Just add more variables in '||' separators. Note that the variables may have a lot of whitespaces in them. (==Do comparisons with care.)
Here is a small sample code. Tested.
data start_data;
input date_var ;
datalines;
201605
201606
201607
201608
201609
;
run;
%macro Do_stuff(input_var);
%put 'Line generates value ' &input_var;
%mend do_stuff;
data _null_;
set start_data;
call execute('%do_stuff('||date_var||')' );
run;
Try this example and try modifying to meet your needs... From the "source" dataset we can use call symput() to assign a macro token to each observation (differentiated by the SAS automatic dataset variable n so My_token1, My_token2, etc.) Once you have a set of macro variables defined, just loop through them! This program will print all the individual records from source to the SAS log:
data source;
do var=1000 to 1010;
output;
end;
run;
data _null_;
set source;
call symput(compress("My_token"||_n_),var);
run;
%put &my_token1 &my_token4;
%Macro neat;
%do this=1 %to 11;
*Check the log.;
%put &&My_token&this;
%end;
%mend;
%neat;
I am trying to use substr function in SAS macros like this:
%let hg=Name;
data gg_;
set sashelp.class;
gh=%substr(&hg,1,3);
run;
and also I tried
data gg_;
set sashelp.class;
gh=%sysfunc(substr(&hg,1,3));
run;
Here Name is the variable in sashelp.class
But I do not get the first three chars from Name variable into gh.
How do I do it?
You are mixing macro and data step logic.
Since it is a data step, use the SUBSTR() function, not %substr. If the macro variable consists of the text you want to extract then quote it, otherwise leave the macro variable unquoted.
gh=substr(&hg, 1, 3);
Note: edited to reflect comment.
If you are creating a dataset inside a macro function then you want to use the normal sas function so you just need to use substr() instead of %substr().
%let hg=Name;
data gg_;
set sashelp.class;
gh=substr(&hg,1,3);
run;
I am debugging a macro I am writing that will treat a string as either a prefix or suffix of a dataset name based on user input. Then, the quoted result will be fed into another process downstream.
So if the user says Type=1 and provides the string 'data_', the output of the resulting macro variable will be 'data_%'.
I've tried a few different iterations of the below code, but can't quite get it....any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
%let Type=1;
%let TableName=data_;
data _null_;
if &Type=1 then
call symput('qTableName',%unquote(%str(%')(cats(&TableName.,"%"))%str(%')));
else if &Type=2 then
call symput('qTableName',%unquote(%str(%')(cats("%",&TableName.))%str(%')));
run;
%put &qTableName;
Looks like you are trying to add single quotes to a macro variable.
%let TableName=data_;
%let qTableName='data_%';
So in a data step you can use CATQ().
data _null_;
call symputx('qTableName',catq('1a',cats(symget('TableName'),'%')));
run;
Or in simple macro code just use %bquote() to allow you to add ' and % without preventing macro variable expansion. But you probably want to remove the macro quoting it will cause.
%let qTableName=%unquote(%bquote('&TableName%'));
Or if you only want to add the % when &TYPE=1 then perhaps you could call the IFC() function. I believe that the %sysfunc() call will remove the macro quoting.
%let Type=1;
%let qTableName=%sysfunc(ifc(&type=1,%bquote('&TableName%'),%bquote('&TableName')));
I have a problem with SAS 9.2.
I'm writing a simple macro which creates dataset and name it according to the variables submitted and some other words/letters/signs, for example
%macro example(var1,var2);
data &var1 || '_word_' || &var2;
a=1;
run;
%mend;
Can anyone help?
Pipes are only for strings within SAS, not within SAS macro. So don't use them here.
SAS Macro does not interpret quotes as indicating a string, it will just read them, so leave out the quotes.
If you want to concatenate elements in macro, you just need to write them appended to each other.
To make clear where the macro variable name ends, append a dot.
This should work:
%macro example(var1,var2);
data &var1._word_&var2.;
a=1;
run;
%mend;