topic Re: Need help with macro variable not resolving correctly inside of a macro. in SAS Programming

Need help with macro variable not resolving correctly inside of a macro.

ncsthbell — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:55:59 GMT

I am trying to assign the variable of 'NEW_STATE' to the prompt value the user has entered and wrap the value in quotes to use in building my where clause. When I try to run it, I get no results because the assignment of the variable 'NEW_STATE' is not correct. Here is my code:

%macro BuildWhereClause;
   %global where_clause;
   %let where_clause = ;

/* check prompt STATE for user entered values */
  %if %length(&STATE) > 0 %then %do ;       
      %let NEW_STATE = '&STATE';
      %let where_clause = &where_clause AND UPCASE(t1.STATE) = UPCASE(&NEW_STATE);
  %end;
 
/* display values of demograpic prompts */
%put &STATE;
%put &NEW_STATE;

%put ******** where_clause is = &where_clause; 


%mend;
%BuildWhereClause; 


Value of the variables from the %put statements:

NC        --  value of &STATE, user entered prompt.
'&STATE'  --  value of &NEW_STATE    I need this to have the value of  UPCASE('NC')  

******** where_clause is = AND UPCASE(t1.STATE) = UPCASE('&STATE') This needs to be UPCASE('NC')

Re: Need help with macro variable not resolving correctly inside of a macro.

Loko — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 14:05:06 GMT

How the user enter the values? do you have a SAS Stored Process?

Re: Need help with macro variable not resolving correctly inside of a macro.

Astounding — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 14:10:18 GMT

Single quotes suppress all macro activity. Switch to double quotes:

%let NEW_STATE = "&STATE";

Also note, this works as long as &STATE contains just a single state code. If it could contain multiple state codes, you will need to quote each one individually.

Re: Need help with macro variable not resolving correctly inside of a macro.

ncsthbell — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 14:24:54 GMT

Worked perfectly!! I did not realize that the single quotes would suppress the macro activity. Learn something new everyday with SAS!

Thanks a bunch!