another option is an environment variable. yes, they can be changed, but few people are aware of the syntax, nor how to access the symbol table and so they are more or less, under the radar. http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/Using_Environment_Variables here is the SAS statement syntax: options set = Evar 'value'; Ron Fehd  evar maven ... View more

http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/Using_Functions_SYSFUNC_and_IFC_to_conditionally_execute_statements_in_open_code 1. A macro is, yes, the first solution 2. Here is the basic open-code syntax %sysfunc(ifc(&condition ,%nrstr(*true;) ,%nrstr(*false;) )) Ron Fehd  sysfunc+ifc maven ... View more

thank you Chris for the note about case sensitive One never knows when one might meet a Unix person for whom case sensitivity is an issue. Ron ... View more

thank you! my autoexec-egp is slightly different than what Chris described in his blog. it does two actions 1. allocates both site and project file- and lib-refs 2. modifies option sasautos: adds both filerefs project and site-macro to the autocall search paths 3. %includes the project autoexec. Notes: 1. case sensitive: Chris reports SEG searches for initcaps: Autoexec My routine is named lowcase autoexec-egp and %includes the project lowcase autoexec. 2. folder names: projects_root: e.g. C:\SAS-projects the site utilities are in folder: ...\SAS-site\includes ...\SAS-site\macros Another project may be named ...\Project-A and has programs in a child folder ...\Project-A\sas the project folder contains ...\Project-A\sas\autoexec-egp.sas ...\Project-A\sas\autoexec.sas rationale: As a programmer I have many projects. Key to this idea that a programmer may develop utilities either parameterized %includes or macros and do both unit and integration tests of them in SAS, i.e, separate from SEG. Using autoexec-egp.sas allows SEG access to those site utilities. I shall restate that: Using autoexec-egp.sas allows SEG access to those site macros. I am still waiting for technical reviews of this item in my book. So: Stay Tuned Ron Fehd  Start-Up Options maven ... View more

RTFM on the intnx function %let today = %sysfunc(today()); %let interval = day; * calculations; %let D_Begin =%sysfunc(intnx(&Interval,&today,-91,begin)); %let D_End =%sysfunc(intnx(&Interval,&today,0,end  )); %let format = weekdate29.; * display; %put today: &today %sysfunc(putn(&today,worddate18.)); %put today: &today %sysfunc(putn(&today,&format)); %put D_Begin : &D_Begin %sysfunc(putn(&D_Begin ,&format)); %put D_End  : &D_End   %sysfunc(putn(&D_End  ,&format)); IF  LAST_TRANS_DATE gt &D_Begin then note: Last_Trans_Date must be numeric and a date, not a datetime. see also: http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/Macro_Loops_with_Dates btw there are 91 or 92 days in a quarter ... View more

Data _Null_ said: > The only difference I see is the first time the "dictionary" is accessed the step takes a bit longer. This factoid is the reason that I stated that accessing sashelp views takes longer. Because, in my testing I put the test against sashelp first I sit corrected: the first access of the dictionaries causes them to be updated, thus, whichever is timed first: * sashelp views * sql dictionary will take longer. I will return to my benchmark suite one of these days to stress test this idea. http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/Bench_Marking_Results_Comparing_v9-1_and_v9-2 thanks, Krewe you're making this place look like SAS-L! LOL ... View more

LOL , tom, it's a basic idea of negotiations: "Hey, this is not my Have-To, Someone Else requires/expects this!" Thanks for keeping me up.to-date. Yesterday's tests were run on earlier versions and those busy beavers at SAS Institute keep on Changing Things! ... View more

"I read it on the internet." http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0812B&L=sas-l&P=R3070 check the difference in times needed to do the same process accessing sashelp views, since they have to have the sql dictionary tables updated before they can have something to view, can take an order of magnitude longer. well, my post was written in 2008 v9 has obviously had a great deal of improvement since then as I see no consistent differences in times in this program %macro copy1(data=class); proc copy in = sashelp           out = work           memtype = data;           select &data; run; %mend; %copy1() %Macro select(data=); proc sql; select * from &data;           quit; run; %mend; %select(data=sashelp.vtable) %copy1(data=heart) %select(data=dictionary.tables) %copy1(data=zipcode) %select(data=dictionary.tables) %copy1(data=shoes) %select(data=sashelp.vtable) thanks for asking for a Reality Check ... View more

btw: sashelp views are deprecated: use dictionary.columns or dictionary.tables proc sql; describe view sashelp.vcolumn;           describe view sashelp.vtable;           quit; 7 proc sql; 7  !       describe view sashelp.vcolumn; NOTE: SQL view SASHELP.VCOLUMN is defined as:     select *       from DICTIONARY.COLUMNS; 8          describe view sashelp.vtable; NOTE: SQL view SASHELP.VTABLE is defined as:     select *       from DICTIONARY.TABLES; 9          quit; ... View more