topic Re: Macro variable inside macro variable's name in SAS Programming

Macro variable inside macro variable's name

BobHope — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 07:52:50 GMT

I am facing a problem with macro variable naming. I couldn't figure out what do you call situations like this but I have attached a sample code.

The issue is that I need to get the variable model on the data foo to resolve to the macro variable model_&&multi&i.

I have tried almost everything I can come up with(&&model_&&multi&i,&&&model_&&multi&i etc.), but probably my limited under the hood knowledge on macro variables is the issue.

Re: Macro variable inside macro variable's name

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:13:04 GMT

Have you tried doing it in stages?

%let helpvar=&&multi&i;

and then

&&model_&helpvar

If you break it into several steps, you can inspect the contents of the variables with %put, or use options symbolgen;

Re: Macro variable inside macro variable's name

BobHope — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:22:56 GMT

Thanks for your answer. In fact I did try that also, did not work. Gives me resolve error in log.

Re: Macro variable inside macro variable's name

RW9 — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:23:14 GMT

Not knowing exactly what you are trying to achieve why not something like:

proc sql; /* Create a dataset which has you loop values (so this &n_multi) */

create table LOOP as

select distinct

NAME

from ...;

quit;

data _null_; /* Using the dataset you created above, generate a bit of code for each observation in that dataset

with the code and the loop variable */

set loop;

call execute('data foo;

model="'||strip(name)||'";

run;');

run;

Re: Macro variable inside macro variable's name

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:34:17 GMT

See this:

%let model_testx=some_content;

%let multi1=testx;

%let i=1;

%put &&multi&i;

%let helpvar=&&multi&i;

%put &&model_&helpvar;

The last %put shows some_content.