topic Re: Call a macro program referred by a macro variable. in SAS Programming

Call a macro program referred by a macro variable.

rnmishra — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:59:24 GMT

I have a number of macro programs that take different data sets for processing.

For example,

%macro Abc; /* Takes data set abc*/

..............

.............

%Mend Abc;

This way I have created a number of macro programs.

Now I need to execute macro program 'Abc' if data set Abc exists,

%Macro Action(Dsn);

%IF %SYSFUNC(EXIST(Dsn))>0 %THEN %DO;

%(&Dsn); /*Here is the problem*/

%END;

%ELSE %DO;

%PUT***********Dataset &Dsn does not exist;

%END;

%MEND Action;

Now if I use

%Action(Abc); The program fails to execute because in %(&Dsn) , &Dsn fails to resolve so %Abc does not execute.

Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks every one for your attention.

Raghu.

Re: Call a macro program referred by a macro variable.

RW9 — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:08:19 GMT

You have brackets around the &dsn., the below works (I note you also miss the ampersand on the exists function):

%macro abc;
%put hello;
%mend abc;

%macro action (dsn);
%&dsn.;
%mend action;

%action(abc);

Although I would suggest there are better ways of doing something like this than having a macro per dataset, even creating one macro which accepts the dataset as a parameter:

%macro do_something (dset=);

...

%mend;

%do_something(dset=abc);

Or alternatively create a loop dataset and then use that to generate code with call execute.

Re: Call a macro program referred by a macro variable.

Reeza — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:36:23 GMT

This sounds like a bad design.

Perhaps explain more about what you're trying to do and someone can suggest better design techniques.

Re: Call a macro program referred by a macro variable.

Tom — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:15:17 GMT

That is because the code the macro generated: %(abc) is not valid syntax for a macro call. You want it to generate %abc; or %abc() .