topic Re: Looping a data step through a string array in SAS Programming

Looping a data step through a string array

Helfy — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:17:09 GMT

Apologies if this has been discussed before, I couldn't find a solution through a search.

I want to create a single data step framework that runs inside a macro loop driven by an array of string variables...

As simply as I can put it...

Say I have the array, days{7} sun mon tue wed thu fri sat;

I want to loop a single data step using this array to generate...

data sun; (each new dataset gets its name from the array variable)
set old;
keep var1 var2;
day = sun; (array variable can be used inside data step as well)
run;

data mon;
set old;
keep var1 var2;
day = mon;
run;

...and so on through the entire list of strings. Is this possible? I've been trying to use %DO_OVER but I can't seem to get the format right. Also SCAN has been another dry run. Is it just the case that the macro language does not support arrays, and I should just create separate data steps?

Thanks for any help or advice.

Re: Looping a data step through a string array

CurtisMack — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:36:11 GMT

I am not clear what form your "array" is in. Is is inside a dataset, or do you have a delimited list, or somthing else?

Re: Looping a data step through a string array

Reeza — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:47:27 GMT

I think you need to look at processing data with a macro variable LIST rather than array.

See this paper:
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi30/028-30.pdf

HTH,
Reeza

Re: Looping a data step through a string array

Reeza — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:48:14 GMT

I think you need to look at processing data with a macro variable LIST rather than array.

See this paper:
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi30/028-30.pdf

HTH,
Reeza

Re: Looping a data step through a string array

Ksharp — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 04:32:05 GMT

Hi.
It looks like you want to split dataset?

%macro split;

proc sql ;

select distinct sex from sashelp.class;

select distinct sex

into : sex1 - : sex&sqlobs.

from sashelp.class;

quit;

data %do i=1 %to &sqlobs.;

&&sex&i

%end;

;

set sashelp.class;

select (sex);

%do j=1 %to
&sqlobs.;

when("&&sex&j") output &&sex&j;

%end;

otherwise;

end;

run;

%mend;

%split

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Ksharp
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Message was edited by: Ksharp