topic Loop a macro for each combination of two lists in SAS Programming

Loop a macro for each combination of two lists

amsbam1 — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 14:17:16 GMT

I have a macro which i need run for each combination of 2 lists. For example list1 = old young , list2 = small medium large. I want the macro to run for each combination of the 2 lists (i.e. a Cartesian product).

Is there a macro that someone has created which i can wrap around my inner macro, and loop it for each combination of the two lists.

I have seen macros like %ITERLISTI which loop nicely for each value of a single list, but i need to extend it to two lists.

Thanks

Re: Loop a macro for each combination of two lists

RW9 — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 14:25:56 GMT

You would need to put more details about what you are trying to do. You could for instance do:

data _null_;

do i="old young","small medium large";

call execute('%your_macro (the_list='||strip(i)||');');

end;

run;

Re: Loop a macro for each combination of two lists

Astounding — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 14:55:37 GMT

The basic structure here assumes that default delimiters of the %SCAN function can be used:

%macro two_lists (list1=, list2=);

%local i j next_i next_j;

%do i=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&list1));

%let next_i = %scan(&list1, &i);

%do j=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&list2));

%let next_j = %scan(&list2, &j);

%*** DO something here like call a macro;

%end;

%mend two_lists;

Good luck.

Re: Loop a macro for each combination of two lists

amsbam1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 08:55:50 GMT

Works perfectly, thanks