topic Re: %GOTO vs CONTINUE in regular DO LOOP in SAS Programming

%GOTO vs CONTINUE in regular DO LOOP

SAS_inquisitive — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 21:59:23 GMT

I have always been confused with the use of GOTO and %GOTO. Does this code simulate the use of CONTINUE in DO LOOP?

%macro m;
  %do i =1 %to 3;
   %if &i=2 %then %goto x;
    data dat&i;
	  set sashelp.class;
	run;
  %x: %end;
%mend m;
%m

Re: %GOTO vs CONTINUE in regular DO LOOP

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 22:09:35 GMT

GOTO in any form complicates programs and makes them more error prone. In almost 20 years of SAS programming I have never used it, neither GOTO nor %GOTO

In your case a simple change of the condition to

%if &i ne 2 %then %do;

and insertion of a corresponding %end will do the trick. And this works basically everywhere a goto is (mis)used.

Re: %GOTO vs CONTINUE in regular DO LOOP

ChrisBrooks — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 01:42:53 GMT

You can eliminate the conditional %if statement by using the %by statement which increments the counter by 2 instead of the default 1 like this :

%macro m;
	%do i = 1 %to 3 %by 2;
		data dat&i;
			set sashelp.class;
		run;
	%end;
%mend m;

%m;

Re: %GOTO vs CONTINUE in regular DO LOOP

Ksharp — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 03:29:29 GMT

Agree with @Kurt_Bremser. Do not use GOTO statement either in Macro or in Data step ,which will mess your code up and make your code hard to read and tend to generate tons of errors. Any of C programmer knew that. Use DO WHILE() / DO UNTILE() instead .

Re: %GOTO vs CONTINUE in regular DO LOOP

data_null__ — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 12:38:00 GMT

Yes your %GOTO does simulate the nonexistent %CONTINUE.

GOTO is the most basic branching construct. CONTINUE and LEAVE statements are just GOTO in with implied labels.

Before there was DO in all its forms there was GOTO. All DO forms can be coded with GOTO, at the heart of those structures the much maligned GOTO is toiling away unseen.

GOTO doesn't make programs bad, programmers make programs bad.