topic Re: select into a macro variable inside a macro in SAS Procedures

select into a macro variable inside a macro

Heraaaa — Wed, 31 May 2017 21:06:20 GMT

Hi,

I have a question regarding proc sql select into clause. Here is my code:

%macro varinput(data=, selectname= , namelike=);
proc contents data=&data. out=contents(keep=name) noprint;
run;

proc sql noprint;
select name into: &selectname. separated by ' '
from contents
where name like "&namelike.";
quit;

%mend varinput;
%varinput(data=outcome.cvd, selectname=miad , namelike=v_miad);

My objective is to extract those variables with name containg v_miad. I want to put these variables into a macro variable named miad. However, it seems that &miad cannot be resolved. Does anyone know how to solve this? Thank you.

Re: select into a macro variable inside a macro

Astounding — Wed, 31 May 2017 21:16:58 GMT

When SQL creates a new macro variable, it is always a local variable. Add this as the first line inside the macro definition:

%global &selectname;

Then SQL will no longer be creating a new macro variable ... it can re-assign a value to the global variable.

Re: select into a macro variable inside a macro

Heraaaa — Wed, 31 May 2017 21:23:58 GMT

It worked. Thank you for the quick response!