Macro that references to another macro

[Kurt_Bremser]

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@Konkordanz wrote:

Thx for your replys. In general, it works without these quotes. But: The reason for using the macro variable with quotes is the step #2 (pls see above): After a user entered the quarter, the dataset should be filtered depending of this information:

Data want;
set have;
where (Year="&Year2." or Year="&Year1.") and Quarter in(&quarter2.);
run;

With quotes the where command would be for example: "[...] quarter in("1","2","3","4");...If I avoid the quotes, this command wouldnt work. If I had another way for filtering the dataset without the quotes, It would be great. Do you have one?

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This is trivial to solve:

%let Quarter2=1,2,3,4;

data _null_; 
call symputx ("quarter_final", ifc(indexc("&Quarter2.","4"),"4","1"));
run;

Data want;
set have;
where (Year="&Year2." or Year="&Year1.") and input(quarter,1.) in(&quarter2.);
run;

[Konkordanz]

Wow, that seems to work. But I doesnt understand why. What is "and input(quarter,1.) in(&quarter2.)" doing? I cant find the answer on the internet...can you explain it or submit a link, where I can learn it?

[Kurt_Bremser]

The INPUT function works similar to the INPUT statement. It reads the string, applies the informat to it, and returns the number if the conversion works.

If you had stored your quarters as numbers in the first place, all this would be easier.

[Konkordanz]

Ah okay, so I read it like:

Where [...] the character->numeric converted quarter-variable contains the digits of &quartal2.?

[Kurt_Bremser]

quarter-variable contains one of the digits of &quartal2.?

[Konkordanz]

Thanks again!

[FreelanceReinh]

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@Konkordanz wrote:

Ah okay, so I read it like:

Where [...] the character->numeric converted quarter-variable contains the digits of &quartal2.?

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If the length of character variable quarter is >1, input(quarter,1.) will read and convert only the first character of the value in quarter. But you can easily specify a longer informat (such as 8. or even 32.) to ensure that, e.g., "  3" (with leading blanks) is recognized as 3 and "123" is not converted to 1. Also, to avoid warning messages in case of non-numeric values in quarter (like "F") you can insert the "?" modifier:

... and input(quarter, ? 32.) in ...