How to use macro in where function using like operators

[karthigao]

I want to use the where function with like operators for data sub setting but the activity can contain anything like poultry processing, poultry slaughter, Meat processing, meat slaughter and so on, now i have to resolve the macro to poultry masking only the % sign?  Example of the code is given below, which function is best in this situation?

%let activity= Poultry;

PROC SQL outobs= 500 NOPRINT;

  create table work.testdata as

     select var1, var2, activities

  from retailstore

  where activities like "%&activity%"

;

QUIT;

the activity variable contains the following value

Poultry processing, Meat Processing, Poultry slaughter

Poultry slaughter, Meat Processing

Ready to eat Poultry, Poultry slaughter

Meat Processing, Import

Meat slaughter, Import, Meat Processing

Ready to eat meat, Meat Processing

Import

[mohamed_zaki]

give example of your data specially the activity col

[karthigao]

activity

Poultry processing, Meat Processing, Poultry slaughter

Poultry slaughter, Meat Processing

Ready to eat Poultry, Poultry slaughter

Meat Processing, Import

Meat slaughter, Import, Meat Processing

Ready to eat meat, Meat Processing

Import

This may occur in any combination, out of which i want to extract either poultry, meat, export, import to find out how many poultry centers (processing, slaughter, ready to eat), how many meat centers, and import, expor

[Ksharp]

An alternative way is symget()

where  find(activities,symget('activity') )

[RW9]

Agree with KSharp there.  A further alternative is to put your items in a table and subquery that.  E.g:

data activities;

     activity="Poultry Processing"; output;

      activity="Meat processing"; output;

...

run;

proc sql;

     select   *

     from     HAVE

     where   ACTIVITY in (select distinct ACTIVITY from ACTIVITIES);

quit;