table values as syntax

antonsvart — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 16:40:02 GMT

Hello,

I'm trying to use some concatenated informat, format, and input statements that live within a SAS table to function as syntax in a data step. E.g. the following statement

informat patient_id $32. ;

is a value of a column called "informatStatement".

How would I be able to use these stored values as statements in an actual data step for many other variable (not just patient_id) and many other tables? Or am I going about this all wrong? I'm using base SAS 9.4. Thanks for your help.

Re: table values as syntax

ed_sas_member — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 17:15:28 GMT

Hi @antonsvart

You can use the PROC DATASETS (link) to do this kind of manipulation, including:

modifying SAS files
labeling a SAS data set
adding a Read password to a SAS data set
indicating how a SAS data set is currently sorted
creating an index for a SAS data set
assigning informats and formats to variables in a SAS data set -> your use case.
renaming variables in a SAS data set
labeling variables in a SAS data set

e.g.

proc datasets lib=work;
	modify mydata;
	informat patient_id $32.;
run;

If you have these statements stored in a dataset, you can use the DOSUBL() function or the CALL EXECUTE :

data have;
	InformatStatement = 'informat patient_id $32. ;'; output;
	InformatStatement = 'informat date date9. ;'; output;
run;

data _null_;
	set have;
	rc = dosubl(cats('proc datasets lib=work; modify mydata; ',informatStatement,'; run;'));
run;

NB: replace 'mydata' by your dataset name in the modify statement.

-> this will execute the proc datasets at each iteration according to the value of the 'InformationStatement' variable in the 'have' dataset.

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table values as syntax

Re: table values as syntax