This is perfect, thanks! ... View more

I have too many of these to create as another step, and they might need to be printed multiple times and there is still the main data processing going on. I guess worst case I can do it manually or just do a super wide format and deal with the ugly whitespace. ... View more

@Tom wrote: I still don't get what you are doing and how ARRAY's get into it. I am writing the arrays to a file which are snapshots of key variables in the data process used for logging.   these are side calculations, IE I  alrady am outputting multiple other datasets in the data statement   I might need to output the same array multiple times at different stages and the lengths would be different so it is a lot easier to use mprint and put to output than to save them as a ton of datasets and output in another step, which is why I am trying to get a solution that works for the given data step.   here is another example of an array I would need to print that has multiple dimensions.  I got to print like 10-20 of these in a single data step, and they are not the main output which is why I really cant use multiple data or proc steps   file mprint; put "ExARRAY(EX1,EX2,EX3,EX4)"; put "**************************"; do d1=1 to 2; do d2 =1 to 2; do d3 =1 to 7; put @2 "d1= " d1 2. @9 "d2= " d2 2. @16 "d3= " d3 2. @23 "V= " ExARRAY(d1,d2,d3,1) 4. @30 "C= " ExARRAY(d1,d2,d3,2) 3. @38 "F= " ExARRAY(d1,d2,d3,3) 2.; end; end; end; file LOG; I already can take the array name and variables as input: %print_array(array=Exarray, dimnames= ex1 ex2 ex3 ex4) and recreate this output code, including the @ placement.  What I cannot recreate is the formatting.  I have the lengths (for this example 2. 2. 2. 2. 4. 3. 2.) for each array as an integer in another array like in my example, but there is no way I know of in sas to make a format from that aside from macros, which doesnt work since they resolve before I can calculate the needed length for each array, which means I'm stuck doing what I currently do an manually specify the format lengths.   ... View more

Which is what I do right now. if I have 4 arrays example1 - example4 of various dimensions, I have a macro to write them out like this: %print_array(ArrayName=example1, dimnames= name1 name2 name3,vlen=5, clen=2, flen=1) %print_array(ArrayName=example2, dimnames= name4 name5 ,vlen=7, clen=2, flen=1) %print_array(ArrayName=example3, dimnames= name6,vlen=3, clen=2, flen=2) %print_array(ArrayName=example4, dimnames= name7 name8 name8 name9 name10,vlen=,11 clen=4, flen=1) but then I have to manually specify the print lengths for vlen, clen or flen each time so that it aligns right. I cant save the values from the data step to the macro, because the arrays I'm printing are being created in that data step. If I can get it automated so I can get the formatting from looking at the array itself, I wont have to have those 3 extra arguments for format lengths. ... View more

Hi Ballard The font spacing doesn't matter to me, just the number of spaces needs to be consistent.   my problem is replacing the f5. f3. etc in your example with the max length if I can.  like if the max length in the array is 3, then I would like f3. and if its 8 i would do f8. for that section.    I have the max values stored, but I dont know how to turn an array value of 7 -> f7. for max length in your example.   if it doesn't seem possible to do its not the end of the world, I just figure with everything else we can do it seems like there should be something like put_integer(x, *numeric value*) to pass an integer as a numeric format.     ... View more

I might have 10 of these arrays in a given data step, so that means tweaking the length for each one manually, or specifying super wide lengths which look kinda bad . Since I can get the max lengths for each column in the array stored in another one during the run, I am tantalizingly close to just being able to automate this print step entirely and it seems like it could be doable ... View more

Thanks for the help, I ended up using the SYSINDEX method as it didn't substantially increase the run time.   You are right that I have to calculate NDIMS, arrayvalues etc I have all of that tested and working fine, the only hitch was that last array generation part and it didn't seem that the ndims or actual values of the array would change the process of initializing the new arrays themselves which is the only thing I have trouble with. I definitely understand where you are coming from by giving the full problem and code, but I have to give a minimum working example because even if I was authorized to share a the input and output to the full macro it wont make sense anyway on its own, and it has to interface with code people have already written and can't change.   But the macros I've needed to make over the past week are complete and working as of now, and I am really grateful for the help. ... View more

edit-- benchmarking the performance doesn't show a real different in speed than just creating new arrays each time, so that seems like the simplest and most foolproof solution.     So I made a new macro variable for each array input that counts how many times the macro function has been called and initalize based off of that, and then I need to run a macro at the end to clear all these "temp" macro variables from the symbol table.  It seems to be working, other than the fact that if it crashes halfway through I have to manually run the cleanup code by itself before the program runs.  I'm not sure if this is better or worse than just making separate arrays each time the function is called, but is there any obvious thing I could screw up by doing things this way?   %macro testmac(arrayname); %let ndim = 5; %if %symexist (_i_&arrayname) %then %let _i_&arrayname = %eval(&&_i_&arrayname+1); %else %do; %global _i_&arrayname; %let _i_&arrayname=1; %end; %if &&_i_&arrayname=1 %then %do; array &arrayname._calc[&ndim] ; /* its _temporary_ always, I just wanted to see output */ %end; do i = 1 to &ndim; &arrayname._calc[i] = 5; end; %mend; %macro rmHDPmac; options nonotes; %local vars; proc sql noprint; select name into: vars separated by ' ' from dictionary.macros where scope='GLOBAL' and name contains '_i_'; quit; data _null_; call execute('%symdel &vars;'); run; options notes; %put NOTE: Macro variables deleted: &vars; %mend rmHDPmac; data test; %testmac(arrayname=array1); %testmac(arrayname=array1); %testmac(arrayname=array1); %testmac(arrayname=array2); run; %rmHDPmac;   ... View more

Thank you this gives the output I want, thank you and it is way nicer than what I was trying.  Can I ask though what the . does on the macros in this case? there is nothing to delay which is what I though the main point of a . was.   That is also a very good point about formatting being longer. I don't thing it would affect my programs too much but I will definitely keep a note of it. ... View more

Yes, this is SAS code that was made to work with other code and follow other pipelines that have a different way of processing than sas.  I don't even come from sas background, I'm used to python where we can actually write a function that takes input and produces output, rather than trying to play games shuffling literal text characters around  trying to fall into some hodgepodge of usable code. ... View more

That is the base of my problem.  I am only given the array name and the names of the variables that I need to retrieve values from.  I only know that the array and those variables exist and have values.  everything else I need to figure out in my macro.  I cannot use anything outside of the data step and I cannot make any changes anywhere in the data step, every calculation needs to be completed in the macro. ... View more

Here is what I want to automate:   ~       ... View more