run

[carterson2]

I dont understand when to sprinkle in the "run" command.

Sometimes in EG, %put &s1 yields

&s1

and sometimes in SunOS, the same statement yields correctly as:

1234.5678

But if I remember to magically sprinkle in

run;

%put &s1;

it works. yipee

Q: What is the rule of thumb, and please don't say always insert "run" because I know often times it is unneeded.

thanks

jim

[art297 · Accepted solution]

To quote from a paper (http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi22/ADVTUTOR/PAPER44.PDF 😞

When a step boundary (basically a RUN statement or

a new step) is encountered, the previous step is

compiled and executed (if no syntax errors were

found ).

In short, if you have to use a macro variable or anything else that is dependent upon compilation and execution (from a data step), use a run statement.

Personally, I like to use them all of the time.