topic Re: Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro? in SAS Programming

Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro?

bharathtuppad — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:55:04 GMT

%put &a &&&b &&&&&&&c;

How this works?

Re: Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro?

Ksharp — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:29:46 GMT

Each time for two & .

-> result_of_&a

&& &b

->&(result_of_&b)

&& && && &c

->& & & (result_of_&c)

-> & result_of_(& (result_of_&c)

Re: Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro?

umashankersaini — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 08:57:36 GMT

Hi Bharath,

Kindly refer to :

https://communities.sas.com/message/172742

http://sascertguru.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/multilevel-referencing-of-macro-in-sas.html

Regards

Uma Shanker Saini

Re: Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro?

RW9 — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 09:18:09 GMT

Seriously, just don't do it. If your having to use more than one & in code, then I would suggest your programming it wrongly. Think about the problem and the data differently, will transposing/normalising the data change the code, can you use arrays, or SQL aggregates etc. Many ways to solve a problem.

Re: Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro?

Cynthia_sas — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 19:27:11 GMT

Hi:

I agree with RW9 that references like &&&&a and &&&&&b are generally unnecessary, there are SOME indirect references to macro variables such as &&macvar&num that are quite useful, especially when you have numbered macro variables. I have an example of this in my paper on Macro Basics: http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings13/120-2013.pdf see Figure 18 and explanation on pages 10-11.

cynthia