topic WARNING: Partial value initialization of the array (Revisited) in SAS Programming

WARNING: Partial value initialization of the array (Revisited)

data_null__ — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:55:47 GMT

I'm reposting my previous hijacked thread on this subject. I am NOT interested in doing ANYTHING that SAS already knows how to do.

I may have asked this before I've been thinking about it for a long time.

Suppose I want to collect user input in the form of an array initialization. I want to use SAS to parse or expand the initialization e.g.

152 %let parm = (4*40 3*(3*7 8 9 10));
153 data _null_;
154 array parm[30];
155 retain parm &parm;
WARNING: Partial value initialization of the array parm.
156 put (parm
) (/=);
157 run;
parm1=40
parm2=40
parm3=40
parm4=40
parm5=7
parm6=7
parm7=7
parm8=8
parm9=9
parm10=10
parm11=7
parm12=7
parm13=7
parm14=8
parm15=9
parm16=10
parm17=7
parm18=7
parm19=7
parm20=8
parm21=9
parm22=10
parm23=.
parm24=.
parm25=.
parm26=.
parm27=.
parm28=.
parm29=.
parm30=.

As you can see SAS knows just what to do and give me exactly what I want. I just don't want the warning. I even works for character strings.

204 %let parm = (4*'hello kitty' 3*(3*('hello yourself')));
205 data _null_;
206 array parm[30] $32;
207 retain parm &parm;
WARNING: Partial value initialization of the array parm.
208 put (parm
) (/=);
209 run;
parm1=hello kitty
parm2=hello kitty
parm3=hello kitty
parm4=hello kitty
parm5=hello yourself
parm6=hello yourself
parm7=hello yourself
parm8=hello yourself
parm9=hello yourself
parm10=hello yourself
parm11=hello yourself
parm12=hello yourself
parm13=hello yourself
parm14=
parm15=
parm16=
parm17=
parm18=
parm19=
parm20=
parm21=
parm22=
parm23=
parm24=
parm25=
parm26=
parm27=
parm28=
parm29=
parm30=

The only way I can see to get rid of the warning it to know what the number of elements the "initialization list" is going to produce. But I ain't smart enough for that and why should I need to cause SAS knows already. I just don't want to be warned.

Perhaps another feature in SAS accepts the same "initialization list" syntax that doesn't produce the WARNING.

WARNING: Partial value initialization of the array (Revisited)

Tom — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:05:30 GMT

Did you look at the PARMS statement for GLIMMIX, VARIOGRAM etc? The syntax is a little different but if there is anyway to get it to generate the values and output them into a dataset then you could pull those values into a space delimited values to use for the ARRAY statement.

WARNING: Partial value initialization of the array (Revisited)

Tom — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:16:11 GMT

Proc POWER also has number lists. Perhaps this can be used to expand a list of values?

Number-Lists

A number-list can be one of two things: a series of one or more numbers expressed in the form of one or more DOLISTs, or a missing value indicator (.).

The DOLIST format is the same as in the DATA step language. For example, for the one-sample test you can specify four scenarios (30, 50, 70, and 100) for a total sample size in any of the following ways.

   NTOTAL = 30 50 70 100   NTOTAL = 30 to 70 by 20 100

A missing value identifies a parameter as the result parameter; it is valid only with options representing parameters you can solve for in a given analysis. For example, you can request a solution for NTOTAL:

   NTOTAL = .