topic SAS dataset modification by using variable values for the name in SAS Programming

SAS dataset modification by using variable values for the name

Brian_lewis67 — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:58:50 GMT

Hi,

I'm being tasked with updating a lot of SAS programs due to a change in Dataset name configuration on our servers.

Traditonally a series of datasets were stored each month within their own databases. The specific datasets were given the same name within each database. So for example in Freeze_month1 there would be a dataset called Activ. For Freeze_month2 there would be a dataset called activ.

This meant that the same code could be run each month just by modifying the libname reference to point to Freeze_month1 or Freeze_month2.

They are now storing all data within the same database but as activ_m1 or activ_m2.

I was hoping to create a variable containing the 'month' element of the dataset and append that to the 'activ' element.

So the code would look something like

libname DB1 odbc dsn='database';

%let mnth ='M1';

data aa;

set DB1.activ&mnth;

run;

This would then translate to DB1.activ_M1

I've tried using various quotes but without success.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm using SAS9.4.

Thanks.

Re: SAS dataset modification by using variable values for the name

RW9 — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 14:08:46 GMT

You need to examine the text which is generated from using macro, try this:

%let mnth ='M1';

%put db1.activ&mnth;

What this will show you is that the code you are generating looks like this:

db1.activ'M1'

This is invalid, first the quotes in the macro variable mess it up, and secondly you miss the underscore. Change to:

%let mnth=M1;

%put db1.activ_&mnth.;

And the dataset name will be generated correctly.

Re: SAS dataset modification by using variable values for the name

Brian_lewis67 — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 15:13:25 GMT

That worked perfectly.

It was the single quotes that threw me.

Thanks very much for such a quick reply