assign select %let variables

[LFern]

My "step1.sas" holds all my libnames & %let variables. It's supposed to be a master archive of libnames and variables to be used in other subsequent sas programs.

Because I don't want a million libnames to be assigned automatically in my sas steps 2-10, Step1.sas also has a macro sql procedure that only assigns select libnames to certain steps. For example, if my step3.sas only needs a libname called "input7", then my step1.sas has the following:

%Let STEP3_PATHS=;

proc sql;

reset noprint;

select distinct "LIBNAME " || libname

into : STEP3_PATHS separated by ";"

from DICTIONARY.LIBNAMES

where libname not in

(

'LIST OF LIBNAMES TO KEEP or CANT BE CLEARED'

, 'WORK'

, 'SASUSER'

, 'SASHELP'

, 'MAPSSAS'

, 'MAPSGFK'

, 'MAPS'

, 'INPUT7'

)

;

------------------------------------------

And in my step3.sas, I call up step1.sas & step3-specific libnames with:

%include "C:\Users\myname\Step1.sas";

&STEP3_PATHS;

------------------------------------------

I want to be able to duplicate this libname sql for %let variables. I don't want a million %let variables to be assigned when I use %include "C:\Users\myname\Step1.sas";

Instead, when I run step3.sas, I only want a few relevant %let variables to be called up from step1.sas.

Any thoughts on how to accomplish this? Any help is appreciated.

[Astounding]

Certainly you need a source of information that could reproduce any of the million macro variables.  I would suggest keeping it as a SAS data set with three variables:

• Step  (the step that needs this macro variable)
• Name  (the name of the macro variable)
• Value  (the value to assign to this macro variable)

Then your step1.sas program could do something like this:

data _null_;

set source_of_information;

where step = "Step 1";

call symputx(name, value);

run;