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David_Billa
Rhodochrosite | Level 12

Any leads on macro program to repeat the value for 'n' times? Assume I have the macro variables called 'name' and 'n'. If the value is 'David' and '100' then I want the name to print 100 times in the log.

 

Desired Output: 100 times value of name should be printed.

 

David

David

.....

David

4 REPLIES 4
PaigeMiller
Diamond | Level 26

Bizarre request. I get the feeling there's a lot more you haven't told us ... however a very simple do-loop works

 

%let name=David;
%let n=100;

%macro do_this;
     %do i=1 %to &n;
          %put &name;
     %end;
%mend;
%do_this

  

--
Paige Miller
Quentin
Super User

EDIT:

Sorry, off-by-one error below.  I hate that the developer of REPEAT() thought it should return the first argument n+1 times.  So to have David appear 100 times, you need:

%put %sysfunc(repeat(&name,&n-1)) ;

 

There is a REPEAT function, so you can do it without a macro:

 

%let name=David ;
%let n=100 ;
%put %sysfunc(repeat(&name,&n)) ;
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Tom
Super User Tom
Super User

The N provided to REPEAT() is the number of EXTRA copies to create.  So subtract one.

%put %sysfunc(repeat(&name,&n-1)) ;

 

Quentin
Super User

Thanks Tom, I only remembered that while I finished my breakfast. : )

The Boston Area SAS Users Group (BASUG) is hosting an in person Meeting & Training on June 27!
Full details and registration info at https://www.basug.org/events.

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