Unlocking compiled macro library

[MattDSS]

Thanks Patrick. The manual looks helpful.

I saw autocalls before and know about saving each macro as one file. This felt very strange to me coming from Python/C++ background. I feel my %start_timer %end_timer macros should be in one file in one folder and my %start_parallelisation %end_parallelisation macros should be in one file in another etc.  If I have a large number of macros, and they all have their own files in one place.... then it will go very chaotic. Maybe I just haven't gotten use to the concept.

However, I know that autocall can read macro definitions from a catalog. I haven't gotten that to work because the SAS documentation didn't give much explanation for this. I am still trying to work it out.

[Patrick]

It's about "modularization" - but you can call macros in macros if that makes sense (I normally don't do it as I try to keep things simple).

ma.sas

%macro ma();

     ....

%mend;

mb.sas

%macro mb();

....

%mend;

m_comb.sas

%macro m_comb();

     %ma();

     %mb();

%mend;

You could have these 3 .sas files all in the same folder (part of Autocall). If a user calls "m_comb()" then SAS will work out "on the fly" that it first has to compile the macros called within macro "%m_comb()".

[MattDSS]

Thanks everyone for all their suggestions.!

[Ron_MacroMaven]

the autocall and compiled features are different.

* autocall means that SAS search for a macro definition reference in a set of filerefs (folders) which are the value of the option sasautos

the autocall is turned on my default

%put mautosource:%sysfunc(getoption(mautosource));*is boolean;

%put %sysfunc(getoption(sasautos,keyword));* is character;

when a macro is called SAS searched the filerefs for a file with the name of the macro

and %includes it, the result of which is that the macro is compiled and stored in the work.sasmacr catalog.

* compiled and stored

(stored and compiled: not alphabetical, nor the sequence of events, but ...)

macros have the %macro statement option "/store" and when they are submitted, or %included,

then they are compiled and written not to work.sasmacr catalog

but to the libref which is the value of the option sasmstore.

%put mstored:%sysfunc(getoption(mstored));*is boolean;

%put %sysfunc(getoption(sasmstore,keyword));*is character

I kind of like the idea of copying the compiled and stored catalog to the user's work fileref

but that is a solution for multiple users in multiple sessions.

I think that is a lot of copying

another solution is to reset the libref of sasmstore.

it does not have to be 'library'.

note: files with macros with the store option set ought not to be in any of the filerefs in the sasautos search list.

see also:

http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/SASautos_Companion_Reusing_Macros