topic Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping in SAS Programming

SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:06:17 GMT

I am having an issue with macro function. The SAS code works just fine when not used in the macro function. Attached is the code for the first macro and the second macros is almost the same but with some more programming on a third variable the first macro does not have .

When I run the first macro, it ran most of the time but sometime it does run and the log is just black line of codes.

When I run the second macro (not attached here), it did not run for most of the time, and it works mostly only if I close sas program and rerun the second macro without running the first one. And a lot of time it runs without stopping, which drives me crazy.

I would appreciate any help from anyone who had encountered the same problem like me. Thanks a lot.

%macro Exam(Program);
.....................
%mend Exam;

%Exam(Program=XY);
%Exam(Program=UW);
%Exam(Program=ST);





%Macro Exam2(Program, Class);
..................... 
%mend Exam2;
%Exam2(Program=ABC, Class=D);

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

art297 — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 21:29:24 GMT

Given the size of your code, I don't have time to review it carefully. However, a couple of points that you might want to address:

1. You use * comments. DON'T! They often will end up being part of the code, rather than the comment you were trying to insert. Instead use either %* comment OR /* comment */

2. Your macro appears to rely on some macro variables that are created outside of the macro. I try to include all such variables as parameters to the macro

3. When testing your macro, if often helps to set: options mprint mlogic symbolgen; Those option settings provide a lot of detail one needs to debug a macro

Art, CEO, AnalystFinder.com

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

ChrisNZ — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 22:08:37 GMT

I specifically used %mend with the macro name to tell sas please stop the corresponding macro.

The word after mend is not useful to SAS, consider it a comment for yourself.

You may not like it, but the symptoms you indicate point to something not being closed properly, as you say.

Maybe it's due to some macro variables containing unbalanced quotes, or something similar. Who knows. You have to study the log now.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

ballardw — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 23:15:32 GMT

Is the purpose of this code to read the second line of a data file for variable names so you can use Proc Import to read data?

If so try something like

data _null_;
   infile "&win5.\&Program._Input.txt";
   file "&win5.\&Program._Input2.txt";
   input;
   If _n_>1 then put _infile_;
run;

and use Proc import to read the _input2.txt version of the file.

If these files occur in the same layout(s) you would be better off writing a proper data step to read each layout where you control the variable names, format and informats. If you know what order the variables are then using the option firstobs=3 would read the first line of data.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 00:50:58 GMT

Thank you Sir. I can work on the comment part, but all the macro variables are specified in the very beginning so that I can use it throughout my code whenever I refer to a macro variable. I also appreciate the debug suggestion. I will give it a try. Thanks,

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 00:52:14 GMT

I do not agree with you on that. lol~~~And I check log for every line of code. Thanks for the response.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 00:53:48 GMT

When the macro function runs, the data are read in properly. The second line is just all the variable names I want to extract and use later. Thank you for the response.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Patrick — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 01:09:00 GMT

@AngelaFan

The macro you've posted doesn't use any SAS macro logic but it's just a way to call the same code multiple times passing while passing in a different parameter value. That will make it really simple to debug your code.

1. Put lines with %macro, %mend and %exam into comment

2. Add a %let Program=XY; at the top of your code

3. Now step through your program, issue one run group after the other from top to bottom and always check if the step returns the expected result.

It's much easier to debug SAS data step and Proc code than macro code. So get first this bit right before you wrap a macro around.

Just some things I've seen in your code:

1. I guess you want to use the automatic variable _n_ and not some variable _n

    newname = trim((name))|| "_n";

2. An IN operator for a character variable requires a comma separated list of values in quotes. That's not what your Select Into will populate into &F1count.

  proc sql noprint;
    select AppID
      into:F1count separated by " "  
    from F1examinees;
  quit;

  ***This is F1 data;
  data F1;
    set Pfile2;
    where NAME in (&F1count.);
  run;

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 01:40:36 GMT

I made sure the macro function run with substituting variables. When I put it into macro and ran a second macro with almost the same code, it did not run or run sometimes. Very weird. Thank you for your response

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Astounding — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 02:27:40 GMT

First place I would look:

What is in VARNAMES1? And what gets written as the value of &COLNAMES?

If you have an extra variable or two in the incoming data, you can end up with a blank value for COL1. That can throw off the logic of the RENAME list when creating PFILE.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 03:13:22 GMT

Thank you for your responses. The code works just fine. It is the macro which works funky.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Patrick — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 03:47:28 GMT

@AngelaFan wrote:

Thank you for your responses. The code works just fine. It is the macro which works funky.

Based on the code you've posted it's almost certainly not the macro as you don't use any macro logic anywhere.

Because the SAS code is wrapped into a macro it can be that issues surface a bit differently - but it's about issues with your other SAS code. ...and for this reason first fix and test the code before wrapping the macro around.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Tom — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 03:55:55 GMT

@Patrick wrote:

2. An IN operator for a character variable requires a comma separated list of values in quotes. That's not what your Select Into will populate into &F1count.
  proc sql noprint;
    select AppID
      into:F1count separated by " "  
    from F1examinees;
  quit;

  ***This is F1 data;
  data F1;
    set Pfile2;
    where NAME in (&F1count.);
  run;

If the variable NAME used in the WHERE statement is really character then you will need to quote the elements in the list.

select quote(trim(AppID))
  into :F1count separated by " "  
  from F1examinees
;

BUT the IN operator is SAS does NOT require commas between the elements in the list. You can use commas if you want to but in general it will just make the macro variable harder to work with than if you used space as the delimiter.

Try it yourself.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 10:57:01 GMT

@AngelaFan wrote:

Thank you for your responses. The code works just fine. It is the macro which works funky.

********* (redacted). Sorry for the hard word, but there is NO macro logic at all in your macro, so the macro itself CANNOT be the reason.

Remove the %macro and %mend (and the macro call), set the single parameter as a macro variable, execute the Base SAS code step-by-step, and inspect the log after each single step. Successful macro programming will ALWAYS start with getting working Base SAS code first.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:36:04 GMT

I said clearly. There is nothing wrong with the base code. If my macro is not macro, why do not you show me what is a macro. My sad teacher will be so mad because u said the macro he taught me is not macro at all. 😄😄😄

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:37:04 GMT

The base code works. Thank you.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:41:51 GMT

Run this:

%let program=XY;

proc IMPORT datafile="&win5.\&Program._Input.txt" out=PFile 
dbms=dlm replace;
delimiter='09'x;
getnames=YES;
datarow=2; 
run; 

 
data Varnames;
	set PFile(firstobs=1 obs=1);
run;

*Transpose the dataset to get colnames;
proc transpose data=Varnames(obs=1) out=Varnames1;
	var _all_;
run;


data Varnames1;
	set Varnames1;
	if Col1="PBSX-E" THEN Col1="PBSXE";
	if col1="IN.MSQ" THEN col1="IN_MSQ";
    if col1="IN.ZSTD" THEN col1="IN_ZSTD";
	if col1="OUT.MSQ" THEN col1="OUT_MSQ";
    else if col1="OUT.ZSTD" THEN col1="OUT_ZSTD";
run;

*Create macro for each colname;
proc sql noprint;
	select catx('=',_name_,col1)
	into :colnames separated by " " 
	from Varnames1;
quit;

%put &colnames;

*Final data with appriopriate column names added;
data PFile;
	set PFile(firstobs=2 rename=(&colnames));
run;

data PFile1;
set PFile(keep=ENTRY NAME COUNT SCORE MEASURE STATUS MODLSE);
run; 

*convert all variables into numeric; 
proc contents data=PFile1 out=vars(keep=name type) noprint;
data vars;
set vars;
if type=2;
newname = trim((name))|| "_n";

proc sql noprint;
select name,  newname,
       newname || '=' || name 
into :ch_list SEPARATEd by " " , :num_list separated by " " ,
     :rename_list separated by " " 
from vars;
quit;

data PFILE2;
 set PFILE1;
array ch(*) $ &ch_list;
array nu(*) &num_list;
do i=1 to dim(ch);
   nu(i) = input(ch(i),10.);
end;
drop i &ch_list;
rename &rename_list;
run; 


proc import out=F1Examinees datafile="&win9.\&Program._exs.xlsx" dbms=xlsx replace;
getnames=YES;
run;

proc sql noprint;
select AppID
into:F1count separated by " "  
from F1examinees;
quit;

***This is F1 data;
data F1;
set Pfile2;
where NAME in (&F1count.); 
run;

data F1score;
set F1(keep=Name score);
run;

proc means data=F1score mean median std min max;
var score;
output out=F1raw mean=Mean median=Median std=SD min=Min max=Max;
run;

data F1raw;
set F1raw;
form=1;
run;

*Find reliability;
data F1theta;
set F1(keep=Name MEASURE MODLSE);
run;

data F1theta;
set F1theta;
SE_squared=MODLSE*MODLSE;
run;

proc means data=F1theta mean var noprint;
var Measure SE_squared;
output out=F1out var(Measure)= mean(SE_squared)=/autoname;
run;

data F1out1;
set F1out;
form=1;
reliability=(Measure_Var-SE_squared_mean)/ Measure_Var;
run;

data new;
set F1out1;
set F1raw;
run;


data new1;
set new;
SEM=SD*sqrt(1-reliability); 
run;

*drop unnneed variables;
data var;
set new1(keep=_FREQ_ Mean Median SD Min Max Reliability SEM);
run;

data var1;
set var;
N=_FREQ_;
drop _FREQ_;
run;


proc import out=Count datafile= "&win9.\&Program._Count.xlsx" dbms=xlsx replace;
getnames=YES;
run;

data F1_final;
set Count;
if formid = "&Program.001" & score = 0 then NOP= count;
if formid = "&Program.001" & score = 1 then NPT= count;
*Nexcluded=&F1inval.;
run;

data F1_final1;
set F1_final;
set F1_allpt(rename=(count=AllPT));
set var1;
run;

data F1_final2;
retain NOP AllPT NPT N Nexcluded Mean Median SD Min Max Reliability SEM;
set F1_final1;
run;

proc transpose data=F1_final2 out=F1_PSummary;
var _all_;
run;

*Get all the valid form 2 person information;
***This is F2 data;
data F2;
set Pfile2;
if name in (&F1count.) then delete;
run;
 
data F2score;
set F2(keep=Name score);

run;

proc means data=F2score mean median std min max;
var score;
output out=F2raw mean=Mean median=Median std=SD min=Min max=Max;
run;

data F2raw;
set F2raw;
form=2;
run;

*Find reliability;
data F2theta;
set F2(keep=Name MEASURE MODLSE);
run;

data F2theta;
set F2theta;
SE_squared=MODLSE*MODLSE;
run;

proc means data=F2theta mean var noprint;
var Measure SE_squared;
output out=F2out var(Measure)= mean(SE_squared)=/autoname;
run;

data F2out1;
set F2out;
form=2;
reliability=(Measure_Var-SE_squared_mean)/ Measure_Var;
run;

data new;
set F2out1;
set F2raw;
run;


data new1;
set new;
SEM=SD*sqrt(1-reliability); 
run;

*drop unnneed variables;
data var;
set new1(keep=_FREQ_ Mean Median SD Min Max Reliability SEM);
run;

data var1;
set var;
N=_FREQ_;
drop _FREQ_;
run;

data F2_final;
NOP= &F2_OPN.;
NPT= &F2_PTN.;
Nexcluded=&F2inval.;
run;

data F2_final1;
set F2_final;
set F2_allpt(rename=(count=AllPT));
set var1;
run;

data F2_final2;
retain NOP AllPT NPT N Nexcluded Mean Median SD Min Max Reliability SEM;
set F2_final1;
run;

proc transpose data=F2_final2 out=F2_PSummary;
var _all_;
run;


************************************************************************;
****************************Final Output***************************************; 
data FinalF1F2;
set F1_PSummary F2_PSummary;
run;

proc export data=FinalF1F2 outfile="&win9.\&Program._Candidate.xlsx" dbms=xlsx replace;
run;

step-by-step and inspect the log. If it works, your macro will also work, because it does NOTHING but replacing &program with XY.

If there's still any problem, post the log as is into a {i} window.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

AngelaFan — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:44:04 GMT

There is problem with the code. Thank you. I need the code to run many programs. That’s why I made the code chunk a macro. Thank you.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:44:52 GMT

@AngelaFan wrote:
There is problem with the code. Thank you. I need the code to run many programs. That’s why I made the code chunk a macro. Thank you.

Surprise, surprise.

Re: SAS macro does not run or run without stopping

ballardw — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 17:38:02 GMT

@AngelaFan wrote:
The base code works. Thank you.

What code?

You have removed all of the actual code so now no one can reference it.

Without code how can anyone suggest corrections?