Apart from what has already been said by @RW9, you are using here a loop that read several times the same dataset unecessarily increasing the run time. Sine the input dataset is always the same, you only need to read it once and hence there is no need to use a macro here.   Tell us what you wan't to do and we'll provide a non macro way to solve yuor problem.   Nothing wrong with macros but as @RW9 they are just a text replacement tool and should not be used to manipulate data. ... View more

Hello,   data have; informat date1 date2 ddmmyy10.; input date1 date2 value; start=intck('day','05oct2016'd, date1); stop=intck('day','05oct2016'd, date2); cards; 05/10/2016 06/10/2016 3 10/10/2016 13/10/2016 5 ; run; data want; merge have have(where=(nextstart>0) keep=start rename=(start=nextstart)); lstop=sum(lag(stop),0); output; if nextstart ne . and stop ne nextstart-1 then do; start=lstop+1; stop=nextstart-1; value=0; output; end; drop nextstart lstop; run; ... View more

A "run" is missing at the end of the data step in the macro. Other than that, i don't see any problem with your code.   20 %macro max(dat); 21 data _null_; 22 set &dat; 23 if x >= y then put x =; 24 else put y =; 25 run; 26 %mend max; 27 28 data temp; 29 input x y; 30 cards; NOTE: The data set WORK.TEMP has 1 observations and 2 variables. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): real time 0.00 seconds cpu time 0.00 seconds 32 ; 33 run; 34 35 proc print data=temp; 36 run; NOTE: There were 1 observations read from the data set WORK.TEMP. NOTE: PROCEDURE PRINT used (Total process time): real time 0.07 seconds cpu time 0.00 seconds 37 38 %max(temp); x=7 NOTE: There were 1 observations read from the data set WORK.TEMP. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): real time 0.00 seconds cpu time 0.00 seconds ... View more

I think the default delimiter for the in operator in macros is the space. Try   option mindelimiter=",";   ... View more