topic Re: Macro Inside a Macro? in SAS Programming

Macro Inside a Macro?

tbellmer — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:35:33 GMT

I am writing a fairly complex report that uses ODS REGIONs and is encapsulated inside a macro. One of the things I do is call another macro to handle the custom footnote area (I am not using a traditional footnote).

Both the main report macro and the footnote macro are ONLY used for this report task.

So should the footnote macro be INSIDE the MAIN macro or outside of it in the same SAS program file or does it really matter? Guess I am looking for a best practice as I doubt it matters...

Re: Macro Inside a Macro?

PaigeMiller — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:47:58 GMT

Best practice ... do not nest macros

Re: Macro Inside a Macro?

Astounding — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:09:05 GMT

Agreed, except in the rarest of circumstances. Consider nesting definitions only when:

(1) The macros are always married and never useful as separate macros, and

(2) The outer macro is used only once per program

Consider that the inner macro could at some point have expanded functionality that might make it useful for other applications.

Also consider that when you nest macros, each time you execute the outer macro it redefines the inner macro. That represents extra work (even if it might be a small amount of extra work).

Re: Macro Inside a Macro?

data_null__ — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:35:36 GMT

Or if the OUTER writes the INNER using the parameters or data passed to OUTER.