topic Re: Macro for Keeping variable names containing specific string in SAS Programming

Macro for Keeping variable names containing specific string

glcoolj12 — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 18:41:33 GMT

I have several datasets (.sas7bdat files in libname 'dataset') that I'm trying to read into my program. I only want to keep variables that contain 'ID' in the name. I have code that does what I want it to do, but I want to put it in a macro.

When I run the code in the macro I created, I have an issue at the PROC SQL/%PUT part of my code and I get warning that says, "No rows selected.......no KEEP variables found, statement ignored." Thus, it reads in the datasets in but doesn't keep the variables I want.

Any suggestions? Thank you.

%macro datain(old,new,final);
   data &new;
   set dataset.&old;
   run;

proc sql noprint;
select trim(compress(name))
into :keep_vars separated by ' '
from dictionary.columns
where libname = upcase('work')
and memname = upcase('&new.')
and upcase(name) like '%ID%';
quit;

%put &keep_vars.;

data &final;
set &new;
keep &keep_vars.;
run;
%mend datain;

Re: Macro for Keeping variable names containing specific string

PaigeMiller — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 18:47:31 GMT

@glcoolj12 wrote:

I have several datasets (.sas7bdat files in libname 'dataset') that I'm trying to read into my program. I only want to keep variables that contain 'ID' in the name. I have code that does what I want it to do, but I want to put it in a macro.

When I run the code in the macro I created, I have an issue at the PROC SQL/%PUT part of my code and I get warning that says, "No rows selected.......no KEEP variables found, statement ignored." Thus, it reads in the datasets in but doesn't keep the variables I want.

Any suggestions? Thank you.

Really, we don't know what variables you have. This could be a completely correct result. We don't know. And we can't debug this ... unless ... you show us that you do indeed have variables with ID in the name, perhaps by showing us a PROC CONTENTS or the appropriate parts of sashelp.vcolumn.

Re: Macro for Keeping variable names containing specific string

Astounding — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 18:50:52 GMT

Single quotes prevent resolution of macro variables: ('&new.')

Use double quotes instead: ("&new.")

Re: Macro for Keeping variable names containing specific string

glcoolj12 — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 19:07:40 GMT

This fixed the issue - thank you so much!