Can anybody tell me how multilevel referencing works in macro?

[bharathtuppad]

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

How this works?

[Ksharp]

Each time for two & .

&a

-> result_of_&a

&& &b

->&(result_of_&b)

&& && && &c

->& &   & (result_of_&c)

->  &   result_of_(& (result_of_&c)

[umashankersaini]

Hi Bharath,

Kindly refer to  :

https://communities.sas.com/message/172742

or

http://sascertguru.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/multilevel-referencing-of-macro-in-sas.html

Regards

Uma Shanker Saini

[RW9]

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]

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