topic Macro execution in SAS Programming

Macro execution

Babloo — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 11:23:57 GMT

I've trouble understanding the macro execution. When I tried to run the code below, .csv file got generated where as it could not be as log.error_table has 0 observations.

I'm execpting this code to produce error_table.csv only if log.error_table not equal to zero observations. Could someone guide me to achive this task?

%macro export_conditionally;
 

proc sql noprint;
select count(*)  into :count from log.error_table;
quit;


 
%if "&count" ne 0 %then %do;
   proc export data=log.error_table outfile='/usr/sas/tir/work/error_table.csv' dbms=csv replace;
run;

%end;
 
%mend;

%export_conditionally;

Log:

proc sql noprint;
18        +
  select   
19        + count(*)  into :count from log.error_table;
19        +                                              quit;
NOTE: PROCEDURE SQL used (Total process time):
      real time           0.00 seconds
      cpu time            0.00 seconds
      

19        +                                                        proc export data=log.error_table 
outfile='/usr/sas/tir/work/error_table.csv' dbms=csv replace;
19        +
17                                                         The SAS System                         07:03 Saturday, September 26, 2015

  run;     

NOTE: No observations in data set LOG.ERROR_TABLE.
NOTE: Data set has 0 observations.

Re: Macro execution

Reeza — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 15:51:25 GMT

1. check what happens to the macro variable if the table does not exist
2. Check your comparison "&count" = 0, I don't think you need the quotes.

Re: Macro execution

Quentin — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 20:52:58 GMT

Agree with Reeza. If you turn on options mlogic, you should see that

%if "&count" ne 0 %then %do;

evalutes to true (not equal) even when &count=0. The above comparison will compare the three character string "0" to the one character string 0, and return true (not equal). Because all macro variables resolve to text, you do not need quote marks around text strings. Suggest you change to:

%if &count ne 0 %then %do;