Programatically save SAS code to a file

[bmutell]

Hello,

I'm wondering if it is possible to write specific lines of a SAS program to a file from that same SAS program and, if so, how to go about that.

Thanks in advance.

[Reeza]

Do you want to generate code based on some data or dynamically and run that or have your code saved to a specific file with a command?

The first is easy, the second I have no idea.

[bmutell]

It's the latter of those two options. I want to save a macro definition to a file that I can later %INCLUDE into other SAS programs:

%macro prnt(var,sum);
   proc print data=srhigh;
      var &var;
      sum ∑
   run;
%mend prnt;

*code to save lines 1-16 to my_macro.sas to C:\Users\me\desktop\;

[Reeza]

I'm trying to understand the logic here, any reason to not just CTRL+S and save the macro? Is the macro code generated somehow? Or just trying to find a full command line interface method?

[34reqrwe]

I think you might theoretically be able to do what you are asking (by reading in the sas program via a datastep and creating another sas program as the output) . But I dont think you should.

If you want a macro to be available to other SAS Programs you should save the macro in an autocall library.

[PaigeMiller]

I'm looking for a bit more explanation.

In particular, the words "saved to a file from that same SAS program" don't have an obvious meaning to me.

[bmutell]

Please see my reply to Reeza above for further explanation.

[PaigeMiller]

So, let me see if this is what you want. You want a program to browse through your code, and pick out the SAS macro(s), and then save them one-by-one into files on your hard disk or network somewhere, so each can be used via %include in other programs. Is that right?

I'm not aware of any tool that does this.

[MSamaniego]

Have you tried writing your program to read in the SAS log (save to a named file) and parse the text?  You would need to set "OPTIONS MLOGIC SYMBOLGEN" to capture verbose macro output to log.

[xxformat_com · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Your request is pretty old but this might help some other reader.

Did you mean something like this, where the content of the macro is saved in another file?

%macro demo (memname=);
%put Message in the log;*won't appear in the new file;
title 'This is a demo';
proc print data=sashelp.&memname.;
run;
%mend demo;


options mfile mprint ;
filename mprint "&xxproject./pgms/new.sas ";
%demo(memname=class);