topic Re: determining data type in SAS/IML in SAS/IML Software and Matrix Computations

determining data type in SAS/IML

rbettinger — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:57:47 GMT

I want to write a SAS/IML debugging module that I can call with an argument that may be numerical, character, or a list or a table.

This module would print varying messages conditional upon the data type, e.g., 'N', 'C', or, let's say, 'L' for a list, and 'T' for a table.

Is there a SAS/IML function that is similar to the DATA STEP vartype() function that I can use to return the data type of an argument to a module?

The "call struct()" module gives me good information. Is there some way to utilize this module as a function so that I may conditionally execute code based on the contents of a data structure?

Re: determining data type in SAS/IML

IanWakeling — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 08:57:43 GMT

In IML the function is called TYPE() and works exactly how you are expecting, for example:

   x = 4;
   if type(x)='N' then do;
     /* x is numeric so OK to do stuff... */ 
     x = x # 3;
	 print x;
   end;

Re: determining data type in SAS/IML

rbettinger — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:22:44 GMT

Thank you very much, Ian.