topic Re: Question regarding Syslast Automatic macro variable in SAS Programming

Question regarding Syslast Automatic macro variable

poo — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 23:18:51 GMT

The following SAS code is submitted:

%macro houses(dsn = houses,sub = RANCH);

data &dsn;

set sasuser.houses;

if style = "&sub";

run;

%mend;

%houses(sub = SPLIT)

%houses(dsn = ranch)

%houses(sub = TWOSTORY)

Which one of the following is the value of the automatic macro variable SYSLAST?

A. work.ranch

B. work.houses

C. WORK.RANCH

D. WORK.HOUSES

It should be work.ranch but I have different answer in answer sheet.

Re: Question regarding Syslast Automatic macro variable

ChrisBrooks — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:30:41 GMT

It's WORK.HOUSES - the final macro call doesn't override the default data set name, it only overrides the default subset value so you have a data set called WORK.HOUSES only containing records where style="TWOSTORY".

Re: Question regarding Syslast Automatic macro variable

ballardw — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:54:54 GMT

And it is the upper case value because that's the way SAS considers all library, table and variable names since it is case insensitive generally.

Re: Question regarding Syslast Automatic macro variable

poo — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 23:24:44 GMT

Thanks ChrisBrooks and Ballardw. That is very helpful answer.