topic Re: About SAS operating problem in New SAS User

About SAS operating problem

Jianan_luna — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 02:46:40 GMT

I am currently studying macro variables course. When I did the practice question with SAS Studio, whenever I submit a code with macro variable, it failed and generated the same code as following. Could you please help me to figure it out? I am super anxious about this trouble!

Re: About SAS operating problem

SASKiwi — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 03:41:59 GMT

Looks like you are missing a %MEND statement at the end of your macro.

Re: About SAS operating problem

ballardw — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 05:11:01 GMT

PLEASE Please please post log entries by copying the text from the log and pasting into a code window opened with the forum's </> icon. This should even be easier than creating an image file and uploading that.

We can't copy and edit code from windows and it is MUCH easier to paste edited code to show where a correction may be needed that to attempt to edit a picture and post that.

Code is text. Please treat it as such.

Re: About SAS operating problem

Jianan_luna — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 15:07:18 GMT

I am sorry about it. So this is the practice question I did: SAS Macro Language 1: Essentials--> 4.1 Defining and Calling a Macro--> Level 1, 2 practice question

I did nothing change on original code, and when I submit it, it always failed to generate results. Here are the original code and log message.

%let type=Gold;
title "&type Customers"; 
proc sql number;
select Name, Age_Group, Type 
    from mc1.customers 
    where Type contains "&type"; 
quit; 
title;

OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 72         
 73         %let type=Gold;
 74         title "&type Customers";
 75         proc sql number;
 76         select Name, Age_Group, Type
 77             from mc1.customers
 78             where Type contains "&type";
 ERROR: Invalid characters were present in the data.
 ERROR: An error occurred while processing text data.
 NOTE: PROC SQL set option NOEXEC and will continue to check the syntax of statements.
 79         quit;
 NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
 NOTE: PROCEDURE SQL used (Total process time):
       real time           0.03 seconds
       cpu time            0.03 seconds
       
 80         title;
 81         
 82         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 94

I found the same problem for level 2 question, When I copy the answer code to my SAS Studio, it shows following message:

Solution:
%macro orderstats(var=Total_Retail_Price, class=Customer_ID,
				 stats=mean, decimals=2); 
options nolabel; 
title 'Order Stats'; 
proc means data=mc1.orders maxdec=&decimals &stats; 
    var &var;
    class &class; 
run; 
title;
options label;
%mend orderstats;


 1          OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 72         
 73         %macro orderstats(var=Total_Retail_Price, class=Customer_ID,
 74          stats=mean, decimals=2);
 75         options nolabel;
 76         title 'Order Stats';
 77         proc means data=mc1.orders maxdec=&decimals &stats;
 78             var &var;
 79             class &class;
 80         run;
 81         title;
 82         options label;
 83         %mend orderstats;
 84         
 85         
 86         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;

Thanks so much! I am so stressed about this problem. I cannot continue my learning process due to this problem. Thanks again.

Re: About SAS operating problem

Tom — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 17:16:52 GMT

Not sure but it looks like perhaps some gibberish characters were introduced by the copy/paste action.

I find it helps sometimes to first copy the text into a simple text editor (not a word processor) like NOTEPAD on Windows. And then re-copy it and paste it. Or sometimes the gibberish will be more visible in the simple text editor and you can remove them.

Re: About SAS operating problem

Cynthia_sas — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 17:47:21 GMT

Hi:
I see the %macro beginning of the macro program definition, but I do NOT see the %mend that ends the macro definition. Until you issue the %mend, you will not see anything in the SAS log. Perhaps you might want to go back and review the lesson on defining a macro program with %macro/%mend as the "container" for the macro program code and then how to invoke the macro program you have just defined.
Cynthia