Tom, I am not entirely convinced that the SAS Documentation does a good Job of explaining that there is no  Difference between a Empty Local Symbol Table and a Local Symbol Table that does not Exist  and looking at Bob's Blog (provided by  user : Astounding above)  : http://blogs.sas.com/content/publishing/2015/05/20/macro-myth-the-closest-non-empty-symbol-table/    the very concept of Empty Local Symbol Table is Wrong . SAS Documentation ought to Make this very clear ,not sure why there is no attempt to do this. I always thought that the Local Symbol Table gets created as soon as a Macro is Invoked ( provided it is successfully compiled prior to this) and then it gets populated with macro variables as and  when requested by %LET,%LOCAL  etc .Ofcourse the  macro variable is assumed to be not already present in the next higher symbol table relative to this Macro. Even Patrick above was under the same Assumption i suppose. But after reading Bob's blog above i have come to conclude that Local Symbol Table is never empty but gets created under any of the below situations the presence of one or more macro parameters a %LOCAL statement macro statements that define macro variables, such as %LET and the iterative %DO statement (if the variable does not already exist globally or a %GLOBAL statement is not used). In other words if there is a Local Symbol Table associated with a Macro then it should have atleast one macro variable in it otherwise it does not exist conceptually. ... View more

Wow .I am very much surprised why SAS documentation has been wrong in this respect consistently since the time I started working with SAS  starting with Version 8.2. Looks like this is not a very well understood topic for sure by many. ... View more

Yes  Patrick i too saw what you saw in the SAS Documentation Link you provided above. But then i again saw this at the bottom of this Link  : SAS(R) 9.4 Macro Language: Reference, Fourth Edition A macro's local symbol table is empty until the macro creates at least one macro variable. A local symbol table can be created by any of the following: the presence of one or more macro parameters a %LOCAL statement macro statements that define macro variables, such as %LET and the iterative %DO statement (if the variable does not already exist globally or a %GLOBAL statement is not used) Not Sure why   it says a Local Symbol  Table  can be created by any of three options options when infact it should say the   Local Symbol table can be populated by any of the following. It also contradicts "A macro's local symbol table is empty until the macro creates at least one macro variable." My aim is to understand Macro Processing . Probably If i were to be asked a Question as shown below   I would  choose 4)  below .But then i may be Incorrect because of the ambiguity above. Which of the following creates a Local Symbol Symbol Table? the presence of one or more macro parameters a %LOCAL statement or macro statements that define macro variables, such as %LET and the iterative %DO statement (if the variable does not already exist globally or a %GLOBAL statement is not used) Both  1 and 2 Macro Invocation. ... View more

When i run the following code on SAS EG 6.1 connected to SAS 9.4  : proc catalog catalog=work.sasmac1; contents; Run; This is what i see in results window.  But i don't understand how these macros are getting precompiled. Also i don't see where the Macro CHECKFMT is even located. I see that  macro TRIM is located in SASAUTOS location but what about the others including CHECKFMT ? Also how is it that ONLY  the macro TRIM from SASAUTOS location gets precompiled but NOT others. This means it is being invoked at the time of Workspace server invocation somehwere but i am not sure where exactly. Anyone have any ideas on this?      1 CHECKFMT MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 2 ECLIBASSIGN MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 3 ECLIBUNASSIGN MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 4 ENTERPRISEGUIDE MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 5 TRIM MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:51 10/03/2014 00:50:51 6 _EG_CONDITIONAL_DROPDS MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 7 _EG_ENSUREHTMLBLUEEXISTS MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:51 10/03/2014 00:50:51 8 _EG_HIDENOTESANDSOURCE MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 9 _EG_RESTORENOTESANDSOURCE MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10 _EG_WHEREPARAM MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 11 _SAS_POPCHARTSIZE MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 12 _SAS_PUSHCHARTSIZE MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 13 _SAS_VERCOMP MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 14 _SAS_VERCONDCODE MACRO 10/03/2014 00:50:50 10/03/2014 00:50:50 ... View more

Thanks LinusH and DBailey  i used the above suggested method and it worked. This is what i did : proc sql; connect to SQLSVR (user=&sql_user_id. password="&sql_password." datasrc=&sql_path. insertbuff = 10000); create table sql_sgr.all_renewals as Select    distinct grpmain, datepart(rnwl_dt) as rnwl_dt format=date9., agency, agency_agent, mkt_rep, rnwl_status_cd from sm_grp.be_ALL_RENEWALS; execute (      merge into sml_emp_exp_rpt a      using all_renewals b           on (a.rnwl_dt=b.rnwl_dt                   and a.grpmain=b.grpmain)      when matched then update           set                a.agency=b.agency,                a.agency_agent=b.agency_agent,                a.mrkt_rep_id=b.mkt_rep,                a.rnwl_status_cd=b.rnwl_status_cd; ) by SQLSVR; execute (drop table all_renewals) by SQLSVR; disconnect from SQLSVR; quit; Now it takes only about 5 secs to update 135559  rows of the sql server table. ... View more