How to remove the space for Macro N?

[ybz12003]

Hello:

I  have the following program.  I found the &N207 came with space and couldn't be recoganized.   How to remove the space of N207?  I have 200 macro N, I prefer not doing this one by one.  Thanks.

proc SQL;

 Select sum(case when find (name, 'nad_dx' )>0 then 1 else 0 end) into: N207 FROM &State.name;

quit;

data want;

set have (keep=nad_dx_&N207);

run;

SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable N207 resolves to                   32

ERROR: nad_dx_ does not have a numeric suffix.

[Astounding]

Either before or after the QUIT statement:

%let n207 = &n207;

This generates leading blanks to the right of the equal sign, but %LET ignores those leading blanks.

[ybz12003]

So if I have 207 macro N, could I do the following?  Or I have to list them one by one?

%let n1-n207 = &n201- &n207;

[Astounding]

If you have 207 macro variables, you probably got them by looping through 207 SELECT statements.  Just make the %LET statement part of the macro that contains the SELECT statement.  Since %LET can go before the QUIT statement that ends PROC SQL, this should be relatively straightforward but you can always post the macro if you need help with that.

[ybz12003]

Could you show me more details how to do it?  Thanks.

[Astounding]

If the SELECT statement is in a macro loop, it would look like this (in simplified form):

%do i=1 %to &n;

   select ... into : N&i;

%end;

If that's the case, you could always change that code to:

%do i=1 %to &n;

   select ... into : N&i;

   %let n&i = &&n&i;

%end;

Alternatively if you are just trying to handle 207 macro variables after the fact, embed this code in a macro:

%do i=1 %to 207;

   %let n&i = &&n&i;

%end;

This has to go inside a macro because %DO is not permitted outside of a macro.

[Kurt_Bremser]

207 (two-hundred-and-seven) macro variables? Madness. Stark raving madness. Keep your data in datasets.

[Ksharp]

Select sum(case when find (name, 'nad_dx' )>0 then 1 else 0 end) into: N207 separated by ' '

[Tom · Accepted solution]

First thing is to not add the spaces to begin with use the TRIMMED keyword in the select. Or if you are running a really old version of SAS use SEPARATED BY  ' ' instead.

select count(*) into :N trimmed from ....

Second is add a step to re-assign the macro variable value to itself as this will remove leading/trailing spaces.

%let n=&n;

Or third since your value is an integer you can use %EVAL() where you reference the value.

data want;
  set have (keep=nad_dx_%eval(&N207));
run;

[ybz12003]

Thanks for all of your great help.  I wish I could do multipul 'accept solution'.