topic Re: Macro help needed for "operating environment variable"? in SAS Programming

Macro help needed for "operating environment variable"?

Allaluiah — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:11:53 GMT

Dear SAS Folks, The following part of my existing Retail Datawarehouse SAS script in production throws an error/warning when executed as mentioned below:

%let STORE_ID=%sysfunc(sysget(STORE_ID));

%put &STORE_ID;

LOG Message:

WARNING: An argument to the function SYSGET referenced by the %SYSFUNC or %QSYSFUNC macro function is out of range.

The system runs on Unix environment where basically a shell script executes the underlying SAS scripts. I am finding it dificult to understand the concept of operating variable as I read through the documentation for sysget function.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000245954.htm

In the above link, i noticed this point-"If the value of the operating environment variable is truncated or the variable is not defined in the operating environment, SYSGET displays a warning message in the SAS log."

Please kindly advice a fix to my problem.

Re: Macro help needed for "operating environment variable"?

Tom — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:27:44 GMT

Use the built in macro function %SYSGET() instead of trying use %SYSFUNC() to call the data step function SYSGET().

%let store_id=%sysget(STORE_ID);

You could also try using a PIPE to read the output of an echo command, but that would not be operating system independent and requires that PIPE engine access is allowed.

data _null_;

infile 'echo $STORE_ID' pipe;

input;

call symputx('store_id',_infile_);

run;

Remember that on Unix environment variable names are case sensitive so STORE_ID is a different variable than store_id.

Re: Macro help needed for "operating environment variable"?

Allaluiah — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:34:30 GMT

@Tom Thank you, I will try sincerely. Please accept my apologies for the duplication here and in SAS L.