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SAS Macros


1) Introduction
SAS comes with a macro processor and a macro language that can make your programs
more flexible
macros provides a way of writing higher level statements and programs that generate
SAS code
in processing code
the macro processor reads the macro language and substitutes revised code into the
SAS program
after this the generated SAS statements are executed
two delimiters tell the macro processor that macro code is about to follow
&name is used to indicate a macro variable
%name is (generally) used to indicate a macro or a macro command
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2) Basics of SAS macro processing
replacing text strings using macro variables
suppose that we wanted to write generalized code that annotated program output to
indicate whether we had conducted a weighted or unweighted statistical analysis
we could use a macro %LET statement as follows

%LET wgtrun=Weighted Analysis;

this would assign the text string Weighted Analysis to the macro variable wgtrun
later in the program, we could use that macro variable as follows

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - &wgtrun";

the macro processor would take the text string Weighted Analysis and substitute it
for &wgtrun, so that SAS would execute the statement

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - Weighted Analysis";

macro variables can be global or local
global variables are used throughout a SAS session
local variables are used within a particular macro
generating SAS code using macros
there are macro commands, like the %LET statement described above
you can also create macros; the basic syntax is

%MACRO <macro_name>;

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The %INCLUDE, %LIST, and %RUN SAS commands follow this format but are not macros. These
commands are more helpful in interactive line mode and will not be discussed here.
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macro definition here

%MEND <macro_name>;

the macro would substitute the text from the macro definition anywhere that the
macro is invoked
to invoke the macro you would type

%macro_name

for example, typing

%MACRO wgt_type;
Weighted Analysis
%MEND wgt_type;

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - %wgt_type";

would define a macro wgt_type that would write the string, Weighted Analysis,
wherever it was invoked
this would exactly replicate the macro string example that we examined earlier
generally we would use macros for something more sophisticated than this
the macro statements can include SAS statements
it is also possible to pass arguments into macros

%MACRO <macro_name<(argument1=, argumentn=)>>;
macro definition that includes &argument1, &argument2,
%MEND <macro_name>;

the arguments argument1 through argumentn would be passed into the macro and
used as local macro variables
to invoke a macro with arguments, you would type

%macro_name(argument1=<value1>, argumentn=<valuen>);

arguments make macros much more generalizable
other macro features and techniques
macro statements can be used to generate SAS code conditionally

%IF <condition1>%THEN
%DO;
<conditional text 1>
%END;
%ELSE <%IF <condition2>%THEN>
%DO;
<conditional text 2>
%END;
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the syntax is similar to a regular IF THEN ELSE statement but would be used within
a macro definition
repeated SAS code can also be generated

%DO <index_var>=<start_number>%TO <end_number>;
<macro text to be repeated>
%END

the macro language also has %DO %WHILE and %DO %UNTIL constructs

3) Macro variables
system-defined variables
the macro processor has a number of variables already defined
examples,
&SYSDATE contains the current date (with two digits for years)
&SYSDSN contains the name of the most recently used SAS data set
the complete list is available at
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/mcrolref/59526/HTML/default/a001071968.htm
user-defined macro variables
macro variables can be created in macro assignment statements using %LET
they can also be defined using %GLOBAL and %LOCAL statements
they can be created as arguments in macro definitions
there are some other statements (such as the iterative %DO statement) that create
macro variables
assigning values
in assignment (%LET) statements, the macro processor generally fills macro
variables with the character string that follows, ignoring any leading or trailing blanks
for example, all three of these expressions are equivalent

%LET wgtrun=Weighted Analysis;
%LET wgtrun= Weighted Analysis ;
%LET wgtrun=
Weighted Analysis;

the statements treat also treat most other characters, including digits, as text; for
example,

%LET n=2+2;

puts the text string '2+2' into n
the only exception to this are the characters % and &, which tell the system that a
macro follows; for example,

%LET var1=value1;
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%LET var2=&var1;

puts 'value1' into var1 and subsequently var2
assignment statements can also include macros and special macro functions
to perform integer evaluations of numbers, you can use the %EVAL() function

%LET n=%EVAL(2+2);

assigns the text string '4' to n
to perform floating point (real) evaluations of numbers, use the %SYSEVALF()
function
a null value is assign by leaving the expression on the right side of the %LET
statement blank,

%LET n=;

thereafter, any time that &n is used, it will generate nothing
sometimes you want macro variables to contain special characters such as blanks,
semicolons, parentheses, quotations, &, and %; this process is called macro quoting
the %STR() function masks all special characters except & and %
the %NRSTR() function masks these as well as & and %
using macro variables
once a variable is created, you would use it (or resolve it) by typing it with an
ampersand
for example

%LET wgtrun=Weighted Analysis;

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - &wgtrun";

resolves to

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - Weighted Analysis";

an exception to this is a macro variable that is used within single quotes (this is an
example where single and double quotes matter); for example

TITLE 'Descriptive Statistics - &wgtrun';

resolves to

TITLE 'Descriptive Statistics - &wgtrun';

the macro variable is effectively ignored
macro variables can be used with other text
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macro variables can be appended to the end of a text expression; no delimiter is

used

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - Un&wgtrun";

resolves to

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - UnWeighted Analysis";

to append a macro variable to the beginning of a text expression, you would use a
period as a delimiter

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - &wgtrun.XX";

resolves to

TITLE "Descriptive Statistics - Weighted AnalysisXX";

to append a macro variable to the beginning of a text expression and also include
a period, you would use two periods as delimiters (this is useful for writing
macros that reference external SAS data set); for example,

%LET libref=cartdata;

DATA &libref..hw1;

resolves to

DATA cartdata.hw1;

listing the values of macro variables
you can write the values in macro variables to the SAS log using the %PUT statement
this is helpful in checking and debugging your code
scope of macro variables
as mentioned, macro variables can be global (available throughout a program) or
local (available only within a particular program)
generally macro variables that are created outside of a macro will automatically be
global, while macro variables created inside of a macro or created as arguments for a
macro will automatically be local
to specify that macro variables created inside of macro are global, you would use the
%GLOBAL statement
if you try to reference a local variable outside the macro in which it is created, you
will get a cryptic warning message that the apparent symbolic reference for that
variable is not resolved
the macro variables that are currently available to the system are listed in the local
and global Symbol Tables
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to write these variables you would use the %PUT statement with these options
_ALL_ would write all of the macro variables
_AUTOMATIC_ would write all of the automatically generated variables
_GLOBAL_ would write all of the macro variables from the global table
_LOCAL_ would write all of the macro variables from the local table
_USER_ would write all of the user-created macro variables
Passing information from a DATA step to a macro variable
sometimes it is useful to take values that are produced by the processing of the
program and to pass these into subsequent macros
the SYMPUT routine does this; the syntax is

CALL SYMPUT(<macro_variable>, <value>);

the macro_variable argument is either a character string or a character variable
with the name of the macro variable that you want to pass information into
the value argument is a character string or character expression with the
information that will be passed
example,

DATA t1;
SET t0 END=final;

SAS commands

IF final THEN
CALL SYMPUT(numobs,TRIM(LEFT(_N_)));

RUN;

FOOTNOTE "Data set t0 has &numobs observations."

passing information this way can be tricky because it raises issues of when
information is available (note the use of the RUN statement before the FOOTNOTE
statement above)

4) Some debugging tools
macros are trickier to program than regular SAS code
there are some OPTIONS that help trace code
MLOGIC causes SAS to trace the flow of the execution of macros
MPRINT causes SAS to write each statement generated by a macro to the SAS log
SYMBOLGEN causes SAS to describe how each macro variable resolves
you can also use the %PUT statement to selectively write information to the SAS log
note the trace options can generate a lot of output, so use them selectively and turn them
off once you are sure that your macros are working correctly

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5) For more information on macros, see

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/mcrolref/59526/PDF/default/mcrolref.pdf