topic How to combine macro values and order tham alphabetically? in SAS Procedures

How to combine macro values and order tham alphabetically?

gsk — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 17:24:51 GMT

Let's say I have (numlist,datelist, charlist are all variable lists):

%put &numlist;

a c e
%put &datelist;

b d
%put &charlist;

f z

I want to combine a, c, e, b, d, f, z and make an output of a string that has values of a b c d e f z so that I could feed this string into a macro to do a set of analysis on each of these variables.

How do I combine &numlist, &datelist, &charlist and order the values alphabetically?

Re: How to combine macro values and order tham alphabetically?

Astounding — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 18:16:24 GMT

While SAS handles this much more easily than macro language, here's how you might approach the problem using macro language. I can't test this right now, so I'm hoping there are no glitches (always mildly dangerous using %DO %UNTIL):

%macro reorder (list=);

%* Break up the list into separate macro variables;

%local n_vars i;

%let n_vars = %sysfunc(countw(&list));

%do i=1 %to &n_vars;

%local temp&i;

%let temp&i = %scan(&list, &i);

%end;

%* Order the macro variables;

%local changes j tempvar;

%do %until (&changes=N);

%let changes=N;

%do i=2 %to &n_vars;

%let j = %eval(&i - 1);

%if &&temp&i < &&temp&j %then %do;

%let tempvar = &&temp&j;

%let temp&j = &&temp&i;

%let temp&i = &tempvar;

%let changes = Y;

%end;

%* Spit out the reordered values;

%do i=1 %to &n_vars;

&&temp&i

%end;

%mend;

This returns a list of variables in the proper order. So you would need to call in in a program that expects to see such a list. For example:

%put %reorder (list=&numlist &datelist &charlist);

%let newlist = %reorder (list=&numlist &datelist &charlist);

Re: How to combine macro values and order tham alphabetically?

art297 — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 18:20:37 GMT

%let numlist=a c e;
%let datelist=b d;
%let charlist=f z;
data test;
  length lists $255;
  array list(7) $;
  lists=catx(' ',"&numlist.", "&datelist.","&charlist.");
  i=1;
  do while (scan(lists,i) ne '');
    list(i)=scan(lists,i);
    i+1;
  end;
  call sortc(of list(*));
  call symput('alllist',catx(' ',of list(*)));
run;
%put &alllist.;

Art, CEO, AnalystFinder.com