Working with solved value of a macro parameter

[ThierryHerrie]

Hi,

I got the following code (simplified):

%MACRO test(y) ;
  year_&y. = 'hello' ;
%MEND ;

DATA work.kip ;
  CurrentYear = 2022 ;
  %test(CurrentYear) ;
RUN ;

What I get is that the macro creates a variable called "year_y" with the content "hello".

But what I would like to get is that the macro creates a variable called "year_2022" with the content "hello".

Is there anyway of doing this?

Thierry

[PaigeMiller]

  %test(CurrentYear) ;

Macros (like %TEST) cannot access data step variables such as CURRENTYEAR. 

Perhaps this is what you want:

%let currentyear=%sysfunc(datepart(%sysfunc(today())));

data kip ;
  %test(&currentyear)
run;

[ThierryHerrie]

Thanks for your quick reply!
Is there a way to pass 2022 into the parameter of the macro?

[PaigeMiller]

My mistake

use this:

%let currentyear=%sysfunc(year(%sysfunc(today())));

data kip ;
  %test(&currentyear)
run;

[PaigeMiller]

But, since you @ThierryHerrie have stated this is a simplified version of the problem ... I feel compelled to point out what you are doing is usually considered a poor practice.

Variable names should not contain calendar information such as year or year/month etc. I believe you are going down a path that has a lot of drawbacks. You would be much better have having year as a data step variable, and other columns indicating the value of something in that year.

[ThierryHerrie]

I agree. Especially when this is something you would like to schedule or something like that.

The endgoal here is to create (for a onetime analysis) a dataset with one row per application and an indicator per month whether the month is relevant or not. This can be one month, or multiple months.

[Tom]

You cannot change the name of a variable after the data step has already started running.

If you want the name to include the digit string 2022 then call the macro with that string.

DATA work.kip ;
  CurrentYear = 2022 ;
  %test(2022 ) ;
RUN ;

But why not just do this instead?

DATA work.kip ;
  CurrentYear = 2022 ;
  Message = 'hello';
RUN ;

Now the YEAR is in a variable and the text string 'hello' is in a variable.

Then you could have dataset where CURRENTYEAR is not a constant (and does not need to be known in advance).

DATA work.kip ;
  input CurrentYear Message $20.;
cards;
2022 hello
2023 good-bye
;

[ThierryHerrie]

Inspired by the comments here I think I will use a transpose to create the column(s) with the year in the variable name.

So first create a (dummy) variable with the value “year_2022” and then use that variable as variable name in the transpose.

[PaigeMiller]

---

@ThierryHerrie wrote:

Inspired by the comments here I think I will use a transpose to create the column(s) with the year in the variable name.

So first create a (dummy) variable with the value “year_2022” and then use that variable as variable name in the transpose.

---

Well, no

Don't create year_2022 in the first place, and then no need to transpose

[ThierryHerrie]

I appreciate your concern, but I will 🙂
It is like a report where you have a column per month, except I would like the data in a table.
Cheers!

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Create a variable called YEAR, with a value of 2022, not YEAR_2022.

Then when you transpose use the PREFIX option to add the YEAR_ in front of the year. You can use the IDLABEL to have it displayed as 2022 in reports as well rather than YEAR_2022 in reports.

[PaigeMiller]

---

@ThierryHerrie wrote:
I appreciate your concern, but I will 🙂
It is like a report where you have a column per month, except I would like the data in a table.
Cheers!

---

Hello, @ThierryHerrie this is a common mistake. You want a report with columns like 2021 and 2022 so you think you have to create a data set with calendar information in the variable names. Not true at all, and even though you CAN do it with calendar information in the variable names, it is not a good approach. The better approach is to have a long data set, with a variable named YEAR containing the actual year, and then use PROC REPORT to create the report.

If you can show us a portion of your data as SAS data step code, and show us the desired report, we can show you better ways to go about this.