topic Re: create a item list and use for entire code in SAS Programming

create a item list and use for entire code

leonzheng — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 18:44:29 GMT

I want to create a item list at the beginning of a SAS code and use it as condition to pull data. Cannot figure out how to do it...

example:

%let fruitlist = apple, orange, banana;

select *

from table A

where fruit in (&fruitlist.)

select *

from table B

where fruit in (&fruitlist.)

My code is similar as above. So next time when I want to change condition fruit items, I just need to modify the first line.

Please help me on this, thanks,

Best regards,

Re: create a item list and use for entire code

Reeza — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 19:11:28 GMT

The key thing to remember is that this is direct text replacement. So following that logic, your code becomes:

%let fruitlist = apple, orange, banana;

select *
from table A
where fruit in (apple, orange, banana);

With this, its clear to see that this is not valid SAS syntax, and you probably received error to indicate this as well.

Adding quotes solves this issue but remember that it's case sensitive so Apple is not the same as apple.

%let fruitlist = 'apple', 'orange', 'banana';

If you're creating your macro variables from a data step or PROC SQL step, use the QUOTE function to quote them as you add them to the list.

proc sql noprint;
select quote(name) into :name_list separated by ", "
from sashelp.class;
quit;

%put &name_list.;

Re: create a item list and use for entire code

leonzheng — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 19:18:18 GMT

oh, my mistake, in real case my items in lists are numbers, that is why I miss '' in my example

Re: create a item list and use for entire code

Reeza — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 19:22:01 GMT

@leonzheng wrote:
oh, my mistake, in real case my items in lists are numbers, that is why I miss '' in my example

Well, I can only comment on what you show. If this doesn't resolve your problem you need to provide more details of what you want and what isn't working - and what not working means.