topic Re: Understanding macro logic in SAS Programming

Understanding macro logic

Justin9 — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 10:19:58 GMT

Hi,

For the code below, please can someone explain the logic (highlighted in red text below)? I'm confused about why the same "score_result" is used for if/then and else?

proc sql;

%if %sysfunc (exist(score_result))

%then insert into score_result;

%else create table score_result as;

select * from test;

quit;

If I wanted to permanently save into a permanently library, with libref "ac", would the code be the options below, or something else?

Option 1

proc sql;

%if %sysfunc (exist(score_result))

%then insert into ac.score_result;

%else create table ac.score_result as;

select * from test;

quit;

Option 2

proc sql;

%if %sysfunc (exist(score_result))

%then insert into score_result;

%else create table ac.score_result as;

select * from test;

quit;

Option 3

proc sql;

%if %sysfunc (exist(ac.score_result))

%then insert into ac.score_result;

%else create table ac.score_result as;

select * from test;

quit;

Re: Understanding macro logic

art297 — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 10:04:57 GMT

I would think that you'd want an option 3:

Option 3

proc sql;
       %if %sysfunc (exist(ac.score_result))
                %then insert into ac.score_result;
                %else create table ac.score_result as;
       select * from test;
quit;

Art, CEO, AnalystFinder.com

Re: Understanding macro logic

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 10:39:49 GMT

This macro code:

%if %sysfunc (exist(score_result))
%then insert into score_result;
%else create table score_result as;

alternatively either creates the text

insert into score_result

or the text

create table score_result as

which then, after being fed to the SQL compiler, results in two variants of the SQL statement.