Calling an uncompiled macro to automatically populate the path

[Kc2]

Hello,

I have a macro call at the start of my program. This macro is stored in my study folder:

C:Project\Study\Test\grabpath.sas

%macro grabpath;

     %global gpath;
      %let gpth= %sysget(SAS_EXECFILEPATH);
%mend grabpath;

At the start of my program, the macro is called:

%grabpath;

it does not work because the macro is not compiled.

Is there a way to compile the macro when it is called so that with &gpath return the directory path so that the path is not required to be entered manually?

so thta is I wnat to call the setup.sas file I only write

%include "&gpath/setup.sas"  instead of %include "C:Project\Study\Test\setup.sas"

[Astounding]

You could add this statement to the beginning of your program:

options sasautos = ('C:Project\Study\Test' sasautos);

That would make all macros from that folder (including %grabpath) available to the current program.

As you have already done, you would need to name the entries properly.  So grabpath.sas would need to hold the definition of %grabpath.

[Kc2]

But if I change the directory name from Test to TestA or TestB, I would need to manually update the program. I would rather not do any manual update.

[Astounding]

Yes, that's true.  SAS doesn't have a function that says, "I moved my macros somewhere else, so find out where I moved them to."  However, you could just identify a bunch of folders in all your programs if that would work for you:

options sasautos=('C:\Project\Study\Test' 'C:\Project\Study\TestA' 'C:\Project\Study\TestB' sasautos);

[Quentin]

One alternative is to store general utility macros like this, which will be used across projects, outside of a project-specific directory.  And your code or config or autoexec or start icon or whatever you want can add that fixed location to the autocall search path.  I typically have an autocall search path that starts with a project-specific autocall directory, then the shared utility autocall directory, then SAS-provided locations.

[Kc2]

Do you have an example?

[Quentin · Accepted solution]

I have directories like:

C:\Projects\Project1\Code

C:\Projects\Project1\Code\Macros

C:\Projects\Project2\Code

C:\Projects\Project2\Code\Macros

...

C:\Projects\Common\Code

C:\Projects\Common\Code\Macros

I put my shared autocall macros in to C:\Projects\Common\Code\Macros.  That's where I would put grabpath.sas, because it's used across projects.

On windows, I edit my config file to point to the folder.  Even though the config file says don't edit below this line.  Because I'm a rebel.

So my config file has a line like:

-SET SASAUTOS (
        "C:\Projects\Common\Code\Macros"        
        "!SASROOT\core\sasmacro"
        "!SASROOT\graph\sasmacro"
        "!SASROOT\iml\sasmacro"
        "!SASROOT\qc\sasmacro"
        "!SASROOT\stat\sasmacro"
        )

That way every SAS session I start with this config file has my utility autocall library available.

Then in a program where the code is stored in a projectN \Code directory, you could call your grabpath macro, and use it to %include your setup code:

%grabpath;

%include "&gpath/setup.sas"  ; 

And assuming setup.sas is just setup-code, it would include a line like below to add the project-specific macro library to the search path:

*add project-specific macro library to front of search path;
options insert=sasautos=("&gpath\Macros") ;

[Kc2]

thank you this worked.