Macro Wrapper alternative for 5.1?

[JoshS]

Hello all,

I'm looking for a way to conditionally move to a specific block of code, or end the SAS program all together. I've done all sorts of digging up on the internet, and everyone seems to be pointing the use of a macro wrapper. I've encapsulated my code in a macro wrapper, but it appears SAS EG stops 'recognizing' my code once this happens (as in, everything is greyed out, it's almost like it's been commented out. nothing shows up in the log except for the text itself). From my research, I'm starting to think this may only be for SAS 9.3. At the moment, I am stuck with SAS E Guide 5.1.

Ultimately, I want to do this:

%IF DATE() = "&dateVar"d %THEN %goto exit; 

(with exit being a label for the last line of the program. I'd also like to consider going to a different part of the code that emails a warning out that the dates in the IF statement did not match.)

I hope this first post was descriptive enough. What do the SAS wizards here think?

[Kurt_Bremser]

The syntax checker of the enhanced editor is disabled for text within a macro, as a macro can be used to generate parts of code that are complete rubbish at first sight, but will become syntactically correct when the macro is called in the right context.

About "wrapping" code:

if you put a macro around existing code to enable the use of %if (which does not work in "open code", ie outside of a macro), you need to call that macro, it won't do anything on it's own:

%macro wrap_it;

%if condition %then %do;

/* existing code */

%end;

%mend;

%wrap it;

[BrunoMueller · Accepted solution]

In order to test for a date like you want to do it, you need to wrap the DATE() function with %SYSFUNC() macro function, have a look at the sample code below:

%macro sample;
  %let dateVar = 09sep2015;

  %IF %sysevalf( %sysfunc(DATE()) = "&dateVar"d ) = 1 %THEN
    %goto exit;

  %return;
%EXIT:
  %put NOTE: &sysmacroname jumped to EXIT;
%mend;

%sample

The %RETURN statement will end the macro

[JoshS]

Excellent. Very informational. You and KurtBremser both helped me find what I was looking for. I accepted yours as the solution due to the extra details.

Thanks again everyone!

EDIT: Had to correct an typo!