topic Define a numeric macro value with a power function in SAS Programming

Define a numeric macro value with a power function

apolitical — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:15:15 GMT

Say I want to define a macro variable "num" to be 10 to the negative 2 power (0.01). I do:

%let num=%eval(10**(-2));
%put &num.;

but I get

%put &num.;
SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable NUM resolves to 0
0

What's wrong here? Thanks.

Re: Define a numeric macro value with a power function

Reeza — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:18:46 GMT

To work with floating point numbers use %SYSEVALF().

http://blogs.sas.com/content/sastraining/2011/09/23/sas-authors-tip-macro-functions-eval-and-sysevalf/

The %EVAL function evaluates expressions using integer arithmetic. The %SYSEVALF function evaluates expressions using floating point arithmetic.

%let num=%sysevalf(10**(-2));
%put &num.;

Re: Define a numeric macro value with a power function

apolitical — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:35:23 GMT

That works great. Thank you.