Selected autocall macros provided with sas software tree level 3. Oct 24, 2016 i am writing a macro and trying to find the string using index function from a parameter that is being passed in the macro. Manipulating macro variable values with macro functions. Manipulate values of sas variables manipulatevalues of macro variables executed when the data or proc step in which they are included is executed executed at word scanning time by the macro processor over 500 available in sas 9. Explains how to increase the modularity, flexibility, and maintainability of your sas code using the sas macro facility. References burlew, michele, sas macro programming made easy, cary, nc. The macro language functions are listed in macro functions. As tom has pointed out, knowing base sas as well as possible is the best route to minimising code.
This paper presents an alternative effective method where a practical sas macro was developed and utilized under 2 scenarios. Valueis a character variableis a character variable. Back in the older versions of sas there was a fair bit of functionality that was missing, and macro conviniently filled in there. There are some sas macro functions which help you to execute various operations within a macro. In macros, we can write functions inside or outside of the macroblock global function. A sas macro returns text that is inserted into the processing stream. If the argument is a text expression, %length returns the length of the resolved value. Macro functions include character functions, evaluation functions, and quoting functions. It will help the novice sas user bridge the gap between beginner and expert programmer. Sas macro programming is considered as an advanced sas. Create your own functions using sasmacro and scl lex jansen. A sas macro is a program that generates sas statements. Special functions inputvalue, informat performs charactertotonumeric conversion.
Arthur li, city of hope national medical center, duarte, ca. A practical sas macro for converting rtf to pdf files. Symgetn function macro function sclvariable symgetn macro variable. Syntax for selected sas functions used with the %sysfunc function. Execute sas program via vba sas support communities. Sas macros for faster data manipulation complete tutorial. Reference a macro language function processes one or more arguments and produces a result. Addressing the composition and operation of the sas macro facility and the sas macro language, this third edition offers nearly 400 readytouse macros, macro functions, and macro tools that enable you to convert sas code to macros, define macro variables, and more. Sas tutorial for beginners to advanced practical guide. Macro functions are fun to write, they reduce the possibilities of macro variable collisions, and best of all, they can be used to impress your date after the movies. Printing the statements generated during macro execution to a file is useful for debugging macros when you want to test generated text in a later sas session. Valueis a character variable informatis a sas is a sas informatinformat, defines the input format of, defines the input format of.
In this paper, we will walk through the various types of functions, macros, and how the functions and macros are stored and processed internally. Ok firstly lets try to use iom to start a local sas workspace server session and run a simple piece of code. Also, there are some sas language functions that are not accessible using %sysfunc. Summary of macro quoting functions and the characters they mask. May 04, 2019 through this sas function cheat sheet, you will be learning different types of functions in sas. Japanese privacy statement terms of use copyright sas institute inc. Your macro programs can be as free as your open code. You can use all macro functions in both macro definitions and open code. Abstract the macro facility is an important feature of the sas language. Different macro quoting functions mask different special characters and mnemonics so that the macro facility interprets them as text instead of as macro language symbols.
These are the most frequently asked advanced sas interview questions and answers. You seem to want to create macro variables in one data step program and then you want to do a lookup from those macro variables in a second data step program based on some value from data in the second data step program. Understanding and using the macro facility tree level 1. May 01, 2019 sas macro provides an incredible way to make a process easy and automatic. The macro function %str can be used, for example, to pass an entire statement into a macro. The macro checkds uses %sysfunc to execute the exist function, which. Since the sas macro facility stores all values as a text string, there may be times when you want to. A macro language function processes one or more arguments and produces a result. It can never return a value, though in some cases you can mimic functions. This section describes the features of the sas macro facility that are new or enhanced since sas 8. There are several enhancements to the macro language facility including a new automatic macro variable, new comparison operators, new sas system options, new macro statements, new functions, and a new option for the % macro statement. It covers topics on proc sql, sas macros, advanced data manipulation case studies. Macros macros consist of collections of regular sas program statements, macro variables, macro language statements, and macro functions contained within a % macro and a %mend. The big mystery for many, %sysfunc is a mysterious macro function with little documentation or discussion.
Here, we will see different sas macro variables, functions of macro in sas programming language. Knowing sas macros is an advantage in the job market over other candidates. Sas macros sas macro is used to automate the repetitive tasks i. Common examples are terminating a program when some condition is met or capturing the runtime value of a variable in the program log. Sas functions byten returns one character in the ascii or ebcdic collating sequence where n is an integer representing a specific ascii or ebcdic character. Writing cleaner and more powerful sas code using macros. Sas macro quoting functions also are used to mark starting and ending delimiters. Upon completion of this tutorial, you would understand how to create macros and where they can be used. Therefore, %str and %nrstr are useful for masking strings that are constants, such as sections of sas code. It also helps create dynamic variables within the code that can take different values for different run instances of the same code. Writing cleaner and more powerful sas code using macros myweb. Therefore, %str and %nrstr are useful for masking strings that are constants, such as sections of sas. Provides complete information about macro language elements, interfaces between the sas macro facility and other parts of sas software, and macro processing in general. Moreover, we learn components of sas macro code and some benefits of sas macro.
How a macro program is compiled 114 how a macro program executes 120. Suppose, we want to create a macro function that takes a data set name as an argument and returns a value. Sas has many macro statements which are in built in the sas programming language. The macro quoting functions is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp when one learns to write a macro program. Catx enhanced string concatenation there are many ways to concatenate strings in sas. The differences and timing of the compiletime macro quoting functions, %str and %nrstr, will be emphasized. These macro functions have similar syntax, compared to their counterpart functions in data steps and they also return results in similar manner. Selected system options used in the macro facility tree level. With the %str function, all the text with the parentheses is assigned to the macro variable. Without the %str function, the text assigned to each macro variable would end at the first semicolon. This means by the time the macro executes, the string is already masked by a macro quoting function.
Using this function, we can report length of the macrovariable. However, their usage by general base sas users is precluded by affordability, availability and flexibility. Mastering this facility will enable the novice user to become an accomplished programmer. They are used by other sas programs without explicitly declaring them. Initially this may seem like a minor difference, but because macro functions deal with. The macro facility is a tool for extending and customizing the sas system and for reducing the amount of text you must enter to do common tasks. The differences are in how they are used and applied. A sas function performs a computation or system manipulation on arguments, and returns a value that can be used in an assignment statement or elsewhere in expressions. Sas has a powerful programming feature called macros which allows us to avoid repetitive sections of code and to use them again and again when needed. Macro variables are character variables so the %eval function may be required.
I think the issue is the language, and how sas is sending my statements to the macro processor vs. In base sas software, you can use sas functions in data step programming statements, in a where expression, in macro language. Macro functions macro functions operate much as regular sas functions, except that the arguments are within the context of the macro language. This example stores three words in the macro variable. It receives only the results of these functions because these functions work when a macro compiles. Carpenter, california occidental consultants abstract many macro functions are very analogous to those of the data step. While data step functions are applied to values on a vector of variables, macro functions are used to create, modify, and work with text strings. Macro facility error messages and debugging sas institute. Using normal sas functions in macro processing some of the magic in advanced macro processing comes from the ability to use normal sas functions, sometimes referred to as data step functions. To use this feature, set both the mfile and mprint system options on and also assign mprint as the fileref for the file to contain the output generated by the macro facility. Macro functions process macro expressions, called arguments, to produce a new expression. Functions are applied to a single variable or to a set of variables for analyzing.
Lets discuss some examples of sas macro variable and sas macros, when. In general, a macro language function processes one or more arguments and produces a result. This tutorial explains sas macros with practical examples. In macros, we can write functions inside or outside of the macroblock global function a % length. This seminar is designed to introduce the basics of sas macro language. Sas macro functions %eval and %sysevalfeverything technical. In sas component control language scl programs, returns the value of a global macro variable as a numeric value. Sas macro functions vs data step functions stack overflow.
However, %quote and %nrquote work during macro execution. The %upcase and %qupcase functions convert lowercase characters in the argument to uppercase. How to create and use sas macro functions sas users sas blogs. Dec 22, 2015 now, lets understand the use of macro functions to manipulate text, perform arithmetic operations and execute sas functions. While you do not need to end this statement with a semicolon, it generally does no harm either. You will also understand how sas functions can be used to make our program less lengthy and easy to read with the help of examples. Macro functions operate much as regular sas functions,except that the arguments are within the context of the macro language. Sas macro provides an incredible way to make a process easy and automatic. While data step functions are applied to values on the program data vector, pdv, macro functions are used to create, modify, and work with text strings.
Summary of macro quoting functions and the characters that they mask sas 9. To find pseudovalues for the cumulative incidence functions the sas macro pseudoci and the r function pseudoci are available. In this seminar we will cover the following topics. We will introduce interaction between macros and regular sas language, offer tips on debugging macros, and discuss sas macro options.
The code below must do the same thing in three different ways using the data step, sas iml, and sas macro, respectively, but unfortunately the third one doesnt work and just produces some warning messages saying warning. Youll need the references added in your vba project which you mentioned. An introduction to sas macros 4 sas macro overview macros construct input for the sas compiler. These questions are best suited for interviews for sas developer, sas programmer role. Executing sas functions with the %sysfunc macro function. Aug 02, 2012 the %sysevalf function evaluates arithmetic and logical expressions using floatingpoint arithmetic and returns a value that is formatted using the best32. Argument 2 to function putn referenced by the %sysfunc or %qsysfunc macro function is out of range. Place all sas data set variables into a macro variable. The terms compiletime and runtime should be understood as related to macro for mastery of macro quoting functions. The functions here are grouped into three categories. Dec 05, 2019 understanding and using the macro facility tree level 1. Using sas macro functions to manipulate data midwest sas.
Selects observations from a sas data set that meet certain conditions before sas brings them into the data or proc step for processing. It includes some common tricky and tough questions that are generally asked in an interview. For example, the input function can be used to return a numeric value back to the user based on a character value and a valid sas format. If the argument is a character string, %length returns the length of the string.
Different macro quoting functions mask different special characters and mnemonics so the macro facility interprets them as text instead of as macro language symbols. Valueis a character variable informatis a sas is a sas informatinformat, defines the input format of, defines the input format of value putvalue, format performs numeric totocharacter conversion. Creating a sas date variable several methods exist to create a date, time or datetime variable either from raw data or from numeric variables in an existing sas data set. Im having an issue with resolving macro variables within a macro. Macros make it easy to produce and execute complex sas programs which would be timeconsuming to write yourself. One of the reasons for its complexity is closely related to understanding the macro processing, such as macro. The functions are again based on proc lifereg in sas and the package survival in r. The other macro quoting functions take effect when a macro executes. Functions that create sas date, datetime, and time values the first three functions in this group of functions create sas date values, datetime values, and time values from the constituent parts month, day, year, hour, minute, second. The macro language functions are listed in the following table.
No longer do you have to write witty or complex code to get around the non macro function issue. Im going to quibble with dirk here in an important way. Sas programming facilities and works with existing code. A sas date value is a constant that represents a fixed value. In additonal, there is a decided advantage to being able to calculate values outside of a data step, because adding another. Sas is rich in various builtin functions, and predefined sas supplied macros. Sas macro language question sas support communities. My main concern here is how to return a value from a macro.
849 1113 454 96 1197 17 1223 329 1618 1151 878 224 976 1002 573 512 380 1501 79 1586 631 926 1630 197 1184 61 1417 167 83 973 1219 771 1275 13 1323