topic Re: Setting a variable value outside a PROC in Statistical Procedures

Setting a variable value outside a PROC

HB — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:04:22 GMT

Hi,

This code is wrong and does not work:

myname= 'SMITH';

DATA lookup;

SET some_data_file;

KEEP lname and some other variables;

WHERE lname = myname;

RUN;

but it shows what I want to do.

I will have multiple reads data grabs and reads and rather than change the value for a variable (in this case lname) in multiple places (even though find and replace is nice!) I'd like to set it once globally outside the scope of the DATA statements (or even PROC statements) and then be able to use it later in those statements.

How is this done??

Re: Setting a variable value outside a PROC

Reeza — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:14:13 GMT

Macro variables.

I've moved the quotes, but where you include them is up to you.

%let myname = SMITH;

DATA lookup;

SET some_data_file;

KEEP lname and some other variables;

WHERE lname = "&myname";

RUN;

Re: Setting a variable value outside a PROC

Linlin — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:14:18 GMT

%let myname= "SMITH";

DATA lookup;

SET some_data_file;

KEEP lname and some other variables;

WHERE lname =&myname;

RUN;

Re: Setting a variable value outside a PROC

Astounding — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:42:52 GMT

On another note, since you plan on running this multiple times you can speed it up by moving KEEP:

data lookup;

set some_data_file (keep=lname and some other variables);

where lname= ...

run;

This will limit which variables get read in. The original program reads in all the variables, and then limits what gets output.

Re: Setting a variable value outside a PROC

HB — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 18:31:18 GMT

Outstanding!