topic Re: Email Macro-Issue in SAS Programming

Email Macro-Issue

sasmaverick — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 14:49:27 GMT

I am having the following code. I am getting one less observation in the resulting emails. Eg. if cnt is 6, I am sending out 5 emails as result. Can anyone please let me know why this is happening and how to resolve the issue.

%macro mail ;

%do i=1 %to &cnt.;

data _null_;

set ds1;

by name

if _n_=&i.;

call symput('firstname',trim(NAME));

call symput('createdemail',%str("'"||trim(EMAIL)||"'"));

run;

filename MailBox

FROM = testmail@test.com

TO = recepient@gmail.com

SUBJECT = "Test Subject"

data _null_;

file MailBox;

put "Hello &name." ;

%mend mail;

%mail;

Re: Email Macro-Issue

RW9 — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:07:53 GMT

Hi,

Well your missing a mend in there for the do loop, semicolon after filename etc.. How many records in ds1? Can I suggest this:

data _null_;

set ds1;

call execute('filename MailBox email from= testmail@test.com to= recepient@gmail.com subject="Test Subject";

data _null_; file mailbox; put "Hello '||strip(name)||'"; run;');

run;

Re: Email Macro-Issue

sasmaverick — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:10:54 GMT

I just posted a partial piece of the code. The macro is executing, but I am getting one less than the count. That is if &cnt=5, I am getting only 4 emails.

Re: Email Macro-Issue

RW9 — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:19:29 GMT

Unfortunately your not giving enough information to go on. How many records are in the dataset ds1, remember that will define how many bits of code are generated:

data _null_;

set ds1;

by name

if _n_=1;

call symput('firstname',trim(NAME));

call symput('createdemail',%str("'"||trim(EMAIL)||"'"));

run;

...

data _null_;

set ds1;

by name

if _n_=2;

call symput('firstname',trim(NAME));

call symput('createdemail',%str("'"||trim(EMAIL)||"'"));

run;

...

Now in the above if ds1 only has 1 record then the second code will not do anything as _n_ != 2;

Re: Email Macro-Issue

sasmaverick — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:27:27 GMT

65 records in ds1. So 65 emails should go out. But, only 64 are going out

Re: Email Macro-Issue

Astounding — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:36:43 GMT

Have you tried adding a RUN; statement to end your final DATA step? SAS usually picks up on this sort of thing ... but since we don't have the context here that might be a possibility.

Re: Email Macro-Issue

ballardw — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:52:00 GMT

Look at where you are setting &cnt.

Since that variable controls the number of iterations that would be a very likely place for an off by one error.

Re: Email Macro-Issue

RW9 — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 17:06:44 GMT

What does options mlogic mprint symbolgen; state in the log? As ballardw has stated &cnt. would appear to be wrong, if indeed there are that many rows in your dataset. Its hard for us to say as we have no data, nor the program.

Re: Email Macro-Issue

Ron_MacroMaven — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 13:06:15 GMT

As others have suggested the clue is that the macro variable 'cnt'

appears to be equal to the number of obs of the data set you are reading, named 'ds1'.

This is a style issue in macros: accessing global macro variables,

for which the reader has no knowledge.

better: fetch nobs at the top of the macro

I recommend cut&paste the code from macro nobs

Macro nobs - sasCommunity

I support RW9's suggestion of using call execute.

which, btw, can be run in open code, no macro needed.

so the code generated is obvious, i.e. has line numbers

and NOBS read from DS1

place the code for the email in a separate program send-email.sas

so you can test it independently of the loop.

here is the routine:

data _null_

set ds1

call execute(%nrstr('%let parm1=...;) );

call execute(%nrstr('%let parm2=...;) );

call execute(%nrstr("%include 'send-email.sas';")

run;

macro function %nrstr is necessary in order to align the macro assignments with the %include

Re: Email Macro-Issue

sasmaverick — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 13:15:18 GMT

Hi all,

Thanks for all your replies. I was missing the run statement at the end of the final data step. Thank you Astounding (user)!