topic Re: Best Option for Return Value for Macro in SAS Programming

Best Option for Return Value for Macro

Baki — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:24:09 GMT

What is the best approach to create a macro that "returns a value". I get that the main idea of macro is to generate SAS code, but is there some way to implement macro that actually returns value in some sense so that I can write:

%LET RETURN_VALUE = %MACRO_WITH_RETURN_VALUE();

If this is completely impossible because macro just generates code, what are workarounds that you think are the best solution in this case?

Best regards and thanks in advance?

Re: Best Option for Return Value for Macro

yabwon — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:46:22 GMT

Macros are not code generators, they are Text(!) generators. If you write your code in such way that generated text is your "result" you can created a macro that "pretends" a function.

You can do it this way:

/* f(x) = x*x + 5*x + 17 */
%macro f(x);
%local result;
%let result=%sysevalf(&x.*&x. + 5*&x. + 17);

&result.
%mend f;

%let y=%f(42);

%put &=y.;

if your code is more than just calculation, e.g., you need some more complex calculations you need to make your code "pure macro".

This is NOT pure macro:

%macro NP(x);
proc sql noprint; /* this is not "pure" macro */
select count(*) as n
into :result /* macro variable */
from sashelp.class
where age=&x.
;
quit;

&result.
%mend NP;

%let y=%NP(12);

%put &=y.;

But if you use DoSubL() function you can "hide" 4GL inside macro language

%macro P(x);
%local result rc;
%let rc = %sysfunc(DoSubL(%str( /* this covers 4GL and behaves like pure macro code */
proc sql noprint;
select count(*) as n
into :result /* macro variable */
from sashelp.class
where age=&x.
;
quit;
)));
&result.
%mend P;

%let y=%P(12);

%put &=y.;

If you want to implement a SAS function consider Proc FCMP.

Bart

Re: Best Option for Return Value for Macro

Tom — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 21:43:11 GMT

Have the user tell the macro where to put the value.

Say you make a macro like this:

%macro MACRO_WITH_RETURN_VALUE
(mvar=return_value /* Name of macro variable to store result */
);
%if not %symexist(&mvar) %then %global &mvar;
%let &mvar=Value returned ;
%mend;

Now the user can call it like this:

%* Create the macro variable ;
%LET RETURN_VALUE =;
%* Run the macro ;
%MACRO_WITH_RETURN_VALUE(mvar=return_value)
%* See what the result was ;
%put &=return_value;