topic Re: Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable in SAS Programming

Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable

svh — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 22:05:46 GMT

I am writing a macro program in which I want to be able to call the grand mean of a variable to use as a reference line. (In my example code here, I'm using a statement that will go into the macro, which will be called by CALL EXECUTE in order to make multiple charts.)

%let analysisvar = MPG_City;

proc sql ;
   select mean(&analysisvar) into :M_&&analysisvar
   from sashelp.cars;
   quit;

%put &M_&ANALYSISVAR; /*This does NOT resolve to the mean.*/

%put &&M_&ANALYSISVAR; /*This DOES resolve to the mean but why?*/

I thought what is happening is that the PROC SQL statement is creating a macro variable &M_&AnalysisVar, but that does not appear to be the case.

I would have expected %put &M_&AnalysisVar to resolve to the actual mean, but instead it resolves to &M_MPG_City. I'm trying to wrap my mind around why &&M_AnalysisVar resolves to the numeric value I want. I was wondering if someone knew the steps in which the ampersands are being resolved in PROC SQL in this way of assigning a value to a macro.

Re: Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable

ballardw — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 22:31:20 GMT

Indirect referencing, with the multiple &&&&& type calls is basically the leftmost & (or multiples) hold off resolving until the ones to the right resolve.

The question is why did you use the

 into :M_&&analysisvar

in the first place

When I run your code the log shows:

11   %let analysisvar = MPG_City;
12
13   proc sql ;
14      select mean(&analysisvar) into :M_&&analysisvar
15      from sashelp.cars;
16      quit;
NOTE: PROCEDURE SQL used (Total process time):
      real time           0.00 seconds
      cpu time            0.00 seconds


WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference M_ not resolved.
18 %put &M_&ANALYSISVAR; /*This does NOT resolve to the mean.*/
&M_MPG_City

That particular warning basically means you have attempted to use a macro variable that doesn't exist, which is why it shows the &M_MPG_City in the log. You have implied that you have two macro variables, M_ and Analysisvar.

When you use the

put &&M_&ANALYSISVAR;

The first & holds off resolving and generates the equivalent of &M_MPG_CITY, which is the macro variable created.

You can see which macro variables you have defined currently in the scope you execute it with and their value by using

%put _user_;

Re: Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable

Tom — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 23:18:01 GMT

Just pretend you are the macro processor. Your whole reason for living is to hunt out % and & and replace text with other text. So let's step through your program.

The macro processors ears perk up right on the first character, %, so it checks out that text and discovers a %LET statement. It stores the text MPG_City into the macro variable analysisvar (creating analysisvar if it did not already exist) but emits NO text from that statement.

Next it sees some text with an &. It emits the text up until the &.

proc sql ;
   select mean(

and checks out want follows the &. It sees a string that looks like the name of macro variable it knows about so it replaces &analysisvar with MPG_City and emits that text to SAS.

MPG_City

Then it seems more text followed by & so it emits that text.

) into :M_

And starts to check out what it sees. I sees two & next to each other so it replaces them with a single & and reminds itself it needs check this string out again when it reaches the end.

Then it sees more text followed by a space (or end of line) so it knows it has hit the end of the token which is now &analysisvar which it replaces with MPG_City and emits.

MPG_City

The it sees more text until there is a % so it emits that text.

   from sashelp.cars;
   quit;

At this point SAS has seen the whole SQL step and has run it.

The macro processor then recognizes the %PUT statement and so starts checking out what you want it to write to the LOG.

It then sees & and starts checking if this is a macro variable reference. But instead if just finds the token &M_ so it issues a warning that it doesn't know anything about this M_ macro variable and writes the &M_ to the log.

Then is sees & and this time recognizes our old friend and writes its value to the log.

For the second %PUT statement when it sees the double & it again replaces them with a single & and reminds itself to re-review this token when it gets to the end. It then sees the plain text M_ and remembers it. Then it sees the reference to our old friend analysisvar again and replaces it. Then it reaches the ; so it knows it has reached the end the token and rescans what it has which is now &M_MPG_City. This looks like a reference to a macro variable, and it should be found since the SQL code that it just gave to SAS to run created it. So the %PUT statement writes the value of M_MPG_City to the log.

Re: Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable

svh — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 23:35:26 GMT

I used
into :M_&&analysisvar because I'm writing a program in which
&analysisvar is a macro variable in a larger program, with steps before
this one. Thus, I'd like to use the same macro variable to make the summary
statistics I need for charts (rather than try to use another one for this
step). After some trial and error, I learned I needed :M_&&analysisvar to
be in the SELECT statement. It's a happy accident, but I sometimes don't
fully understand how these are resolved. Thanks for your help.

Re: Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable

Tom — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 23:39:52 GMT

To reference a macro variable you only need one &. The happy accident is that using two also worked.

Using the SYMBOLGEN option can help you see what is happening.

337   %let analysisvar=MPG_City;
338
339   options symbolgen;
340   %put M_&analysisvar ;
SYMBOLGEN:  Macro variable ANALYSISVAR resolves to MPG_City
M_MPG_City
341   %put M_&&analysisvar ;
SYMBOLGEN:  && resolves to &.
SYMBOLGEN:  Macro variable ANALYSISVAR resolves to MPG_City
M_MPG_City

Re: Help with Interpreting the Resolving of Macro variable

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 23:55:39 GMT

Hi:
Take a look at pages 10-11 and Figure 18 in this paper https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings13/120-2013.pdf . The Figure is an example of Macro Variable "indirect reference". This may help you understand more about how macro variables can be resolved.
Cynthia