topic Loop over list of characters in SAS Programming

Loop over list of characters

jaredp — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:01:04 GMT

For looping over a list of characters, a data null step works fine:

data _null_;

do r="AB", "DE", "XY";

put r=;

end;

run;

But I'm curious if this be replicated in a macro? When I try with the code below, it expects a %to to be paired with the %do:

%macro char_loop;

%do r="AB", "DE", "XY";
%put &r=;
%end;

%mend char_loop;

For anyone interested, there were a couple threads that touch on this topic:

Haikuo — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:32:00 GMT

%DO loop is not as nearly robust as its datastep counterpart. No, I don't think you can use the same style of looping.

Haikuo

jaredp — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:37:04 GMT

I've been coming to the same conclusion. If it a macro countapart is possible (and it likely is), the code would likely be painful.

Reeza — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:16:30 GMT

Scan through a list..as mentioned in your links.

And bump it up on the ideas list or SASware ballot as well

%let i=1;

%do %while (%scan(&varlist, &i, " ") ^=%str());

%let var=%scan(&varlist, &i, " ");

%let i=%eval(&i+1);

%end;

jaredp — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:10:04 GMT

Thanks Reeza. Good idea to add this to the ballot.

I did see that macro solution, but it certainly is not pretty.

jaredp — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:40:22 GMT

Haha, I see I already had my vote added to that idea.

Ron_MacroMaven — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:03:35 GMT

This trick is shown in