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

WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

AJ_Brien — Thu, 02 May 2019 18:53:32 GMT

Hello,

I'm trying to invoke a macro from my code but I keep getting this error:

WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro TEST not resolved.

ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.

This is the code that I'm calling the macro from:

Options                                                                                                                           
   Mautosource                                                                                                                    
   Sasautos = ('unix link where the test.sas file is located')                                                                                                 
   source2                                                                                                                        
   nocenter mlogic symbolgen                                                                                               
   ; 

%test(table.acct,acct);

when I copy paste the entire macro in the code, it runs fine. which confirms there is nothing wrong with the macro. Below is the macro definition in the file test.sas:

%macro test(table,var);

proc sql noprint;
        CONNECT TO teradata (user= "%sysget(user)" password = "&pass" tdpid="rchtera" mode=teradata);
		create table abc as select * from connection to teradata
	( select top 2 &var. from &table.);
	disconnect from teradata;
	quit;

%mend;

I even tried using %include, but that hasn't helped either. In any case I would prefer invoking without using %include.

Appreciate any help!

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

Quentin — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:41:44 GMT

What happens when you try to %include the file? Does it not see test.sas?

Remember that on unix your file paths/names are case sensitive. Also double check that your link is working. Yet another possibility is that the account used to run the SAS job does not have read access to test.sas.

Also, within a SAS session SAS will only look for an autocall macro definition once, by default. So once you see that message, it will not look again for the definition. When debugging, it's sometimes helpful to change that by setting the system option MRECALL.

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

AJ_Brien — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:49:30 GMT

I checked the link, no issues there with the access. There is no inconsistency in the name of the file either, the case and spelling match.

I tried include like this:

filename job "unix link where test.sas is located";
%include job(test);

This is what I get in logs:

WARNING: Physical file does not exist, /unix link/test.sas.
ERROR: Cannot %INCLUDE member test in the aggregate JOB.

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

Reeza — Thu, 02 May 2019 20:07:48 GMT

@AJ_Brien wrote:

I checked the link, no issues there with the access. There is no inconsistency in the name of the file either, the case and spelling match.

I tried include like this:

filename job "unix link where test.sas is located";
%include job(test);

This is what I get in logs:

WARNING: Physical file does not exist, /unix link/test.sas.
ERROR: Cannot %INCLUDE member test in the aggregate JOB.

What happens when you don't use a filename reference at all? If it can't find that path/program then it won't run.

%include ' path to .sas file here';

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

AJ_Brien — Thu, 02 May 2019 20:15:54 GMT

I get this:

ERROR: Invalid file, 'path to .sas file'.
ERROR: Cannot open %INCLUDE file 'path to .sas file'.

But I queried a dataset that exists in that same link and was able to see that without any problem. So I definitely do not have any access issues and that path is definitely correct.

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

Reeza — Thu, 02 May 2019 20:32:38 GMT

Do you have the file name correct? The extension? The file doesn't exist for some reason? It's all lower case in both places like someone else mentioned?

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

Tom — Thu, 02 May 2019 20:44:50 GMT

When you add a path into the SASAUTOS option and then ask to run a macro named TEST it will look for a file name 'test.sas' in that location.

So what happens when you try:

%include 'unix link where the test.sas file is located/test.sas' ;
%test(table.acct,acct);

Unix can do strange things also. Someone had an issue on this forum a little while ago because the actual name of the file ended in a space.

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

AJ_Brien — Thu, 02 May 2019 20:52:53 GMT

This worked!

Could you please explain why did I have to use the include with the macro invocation? I've never seen anyone do that before?

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

ballardw — Thu, 02 May 2019 21:05:26 GMT

@AJ_Brien wrote:

This worked!

Could you please explain why did I have to use the include with the macro invocation? I've never seen anyone do that before?

When the %include is successful, assuming there is actual SAS code in the file, then that code is submitted for execution. In this case that likely means the macro was finally compiled.

The log likely had a note to that affect.

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

Tom — Thu, 02 May 2019 21:12:32 GMT

Then the issue is the MRECALL option as previously mentioned.

Perhaps your autoexec or some earlier code in the same SAS session already used that macro name and so SAS thinks it shouldn't have to look for the source again.

The MRECALL option is what tells it to try again.

Re: WARNING:Apparent invocation of macro not resolved.

Tom — Thu, 02 May 2019 21:13:50 GMT

And the name of the file you included was literally test.sas and not something with one or more uppercase letters? Like TEST.SAS or Test.SAS?