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bharathtuppad
Obsidian | Level 7

%put &a &&&b &&&&&&&c;

How this works?

4 REPLIES 4
Ksharp
Super User

Each time for two & .

&a

-> result_of_&a

&& &b

->&(result_of_&b)

&& && && &c

->& &   & (result_of_&c)

->  &   result_of_(& (result_of_&c)

RW9
Diamond | Level 26 RW9
Diamond | Level 26

Seriously, just don't do it.  If your having to use more than one & in code, then I would suggest your programming it wrongly.  Think about the problem and the data differently, will transposing/normalising the data change the code, can you use arrays, or SQL aggregates etc.  Many ways to solve a problem.

Cynthia_sas
Diamond | Level 26

Hi:

  I agree with RW9 that references like &&&&a and &&&&&b are generally unnecessary, there are SOME indirect references to macro variables such as &&macvar&num that are quite useful, especially when you have numbered macro variables. I have an example of this in my paper on Macro Basics: http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings13/120-2013.pdf see Figure 18 and explanation on pages 10-11.

cynthia

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