topic Re: Length macro variables in SAS Programming

Length macro variables

MyleneC — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 20:26:38 GMT

How long is the length of the value that can be put in a macro variable?

Here is my code:

/** Get specific title from the note description dataset **/

proc sql noprint;

select desc_e, desc_f into :T1_EI_TITLE_E, :T1_EI_TITLE_F

from notedesc.no&curr_nt

where code = "T1_EI_TITLE";

quit;

It crashes because the length of both "desc_e" and "desc_f" is too long. Is there a way to make this work?

Thanks a lot in advance 🙂

Re: Length macro variables

Astounding — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 20:41:08 GMT

The most common setting for maximum length of a macro variable is 65,534 characters. Do you really expect the values you are reading to be anywhere near that long? More likely there is some other cause of the crash. Have you considered reading the data into a SAS data set rather than into macro variables?

Good luck.

Re: Length macro variables

ballardw — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 16:22:24 GMT

If there is a "crash" do you mean errors in the log or SAS quits? If there are errors then post them to help diagnose the problems.

The system option MVARSIZE sets the maximum length of macro variables and may default to 4096.

Try

proc options group=macro; run;

to examine macro related settings.

If the lengths of your data set variable do exceed the MVARSIZE then increase the value:

options mvarsize=9000; or sum such to match.

Re: Length macro variables

MyleneC — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 21:21:44 GMT

You were right... it was a semi column issue. Thanks everyone!!