Retrieving variables' labels, formats and type within a macro

[Ubai]

Hi everyone,

I want to adjust a macro - here called MacroBL -, which was developed by someone else. For this macro to function, I need to write the variables that I want and separate them with an backslash (\). For each variable I need to write the name, type (CTN: continuous, or CTG: categorical) and label manually. There is no way for this macro to retrieve the variable's format.

What I have tried to do for the last six hours is to let the macro recognize the variable's label, format and type directly as present in the data. I tried several methods like using vlabelx, varlabel or %sysfunc(varlabel) but I didn't get it to work.

I am not a macro expert and the answer should be really easy. Do you guys have an idea?  Thanks in forward.

Here is the essential part of the macro I'm trying to manipulate.

%MacroBL(data=, var=var1|CTN|label1\ var2|CTG|label2)

%let nvar=%sysfunc(countw(&var,%str(\)));

%do n=1 %to &nvar;	
	%let var&n=%scan(%qscan(&var,&n,%str(\)),1,|);
	%let vartype&n=%scan(%qscan(&var,&n,%str(\)),2,|);
	%let varlabel&n=%scan(%qscan(&var,&n,%str(\)),3,|);

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

You can get variable names, labels and formats from Dictionary.columns (or sashelp.vcolumn) given a library and dataset name.

Or with proc contents. But are you sure every variable has a format assigned? a Label?

And what information in the data set metadata tells you that a variable is categorical or continuous?

The following code creates a table of properties of the data set SASHELP.BASEBALL.

proc sql;
   create table work.properties as 
   select name, type,label,format
   from dictionary.columns
   where libname='SASHELP' and memname='BASEBALL';
quit;

Note the TYPE will be "char" or "num" in the resulting set. I don't know how to get CTN or CTG from these properties for this data set.

That might be sufficient with a data step using that information to create either an %include file with the call to the macro using that data set information, or Call execute