Embed SAS Macro Results in SAS code

Question

I would like to include the results of a macro function call in a data step. I can do this indirectly, by first assigning the macro function output to a macro variable, and then using that macro variable within my function, but this seems inelegant.

data dataset_employee;
input name $ dept $;
  datalines;
  John Sales
  Mary Acctng
;
data dataset_employee;
input name $ dept $;
  datalines;
  John Sales
  Mary Acctng
;

data dataset_manager;
input name $ dept $;
  datalines;
  Will Sales
  Sue Acctng
;

It seems like SAS doesn't realize that the macro call is complete and I'm switching to regular SAS code.

 /*this works*/
%let var = %DO_OVER(VALUES=employee, PHRASE=dataset_?) dataset_manager; 
data combined1;
  set &var dataset_manager;
run;

/*this fails*/
data combined;
  set %DO_OVER(VALUES=employee manager, PHRASE=dataset_?); 
  dataset_manager;
run;

/*this works*/
data combined;
  set dataset_manager %DO_OVER(VALUES=employee manager, PHRASE=dataset_?); 
  ;
run;

Can anyone help me understand what is going on here?

I don't see the code/definition for %DO_OVER in your post? Looks like it was accidentally deleted? Also the sentence between the 2 code blocks is currently truncated... — Robert Penridge
%DO_OVER is a macro mentioned here www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi31/040-31.pdf and can be downloaded here sascommunity.org/wiki/Tight_Looping_with_Macro_Arrays, but I suspect the same issue will come up with calling other macro functions. — Lukas Halim

DaBigNikoladze DaBigNikoladze · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-23T22:39:34

It seems that the failing attempt is due to an extra ; at the end of the macro invocation. Try removing it.

A macro call doesn't require a semicolon. The first example works without a semicolon after the macro call (pay attention, you are using the dataset_manager dataset twice, in the %let and again in the set statement).

The third example would work even if you remove one of the two semicolons (one is required to end the set statement).

Embed SAS Macro Results in SAS code

1 Answers