topic Re: Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved in SAS Programming

Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved

antenga — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 05:40:34 GMT

Hi,

I am creating a table which a column name 'Ev_%_Sat_Sch' in SAS DI and I get the warning : 'apparent invocation of macro xxxx not resolved' .

This column name is in an existing SAS EG code and I am trying to put that in SAS DI without any changes to the table structure.

Is there a way I could just use the existing DI objects (e.g. extract, Join) without having to manipulate the existing generated code?

In the 'Physical Storage' tab for the DI objects, I have selected both 'Enable case-sensitive DBMS object names' and 'Enable special characters within table or column object names'.

Thank you.

Rgds.

Re: Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved

ChrisNZ — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 05:56:24 GMT

If the column name was single quoted as your question shows, there would be no warning.

Unless the single quotes shown are themselves in a longer, double quoted string?

In any case, single quote you column name to make the warning disappear.

Re: Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved

antenga — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 06:07:56 GMT

Hi Chris,

The generated code has a double quote around the column name :- "xx_%_xx"n. I had changed the double quote to single quote to make it work :- 'xx_%_xx'n.

Was hoping for another way instead of changing the generated code.

Thanks.

Re: Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved

ChrisNZ — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 06:12:54 GMT

It's a bit silly of sas to double quote for no reason by default, though I suppose they did not expect a variable containing a % sign.

Since it already has a nasty name, can you replace the underscore after the % with a space? That would remove the warning too.

Re: Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 06:23:16 GMT

Review your process and get rid of the non-standard names. Your post is just another illustration why name literals are a VERY BAD IDEA

Re: Apparent invocation of macro xxx not resolved

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 06:27:31 GMT

I guess they DID expect macro calls in variable names, and that's why they use double quotes. So either have Scylla (non-resolvable macro triggers) or Charybdis (loss of macro functionality).

Using only standard SAS names would of course completely remove this issue.