Fehd, Ronald J. <rjf2@CDC.GOV> writes >while polishing my (in)famous 800-lb gorilla/800-line program >I saw that it would make debugging immensely easier >if I copied structures from the library members soon to be appended to. > >DATA XY;X = 1;Y=2;OUTPUT;STOP; >DATA YX;Y = 1;X=2;OUTPUT;STOP; >DATA XYZ; >if 0 then set XY;%*copy structure; > %*(obs=0) not needed; >set YX; >PROC PRINT data = XYZ; >RUN; > >commentary? > >Ron Fehd the macro maven CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2@cdc.gov >

If "copy structure" is part of a larger data step process, then it may be appropriate. However, I think the remainder of the process may provide more constraint. If you expect to have a %copy_structure(fromDS) macro, it needs little more than %macro copy_structure( fromDS ) ; %if %sysfunc( exist( &fromDS )) %then %do; set &fromDS( obs=0 ) ; %end; %else do; %put MACRO_&sysMacroName_ERROR: attempt use &fromDS does not exist; %end; %mend copy_structure ;

However, you may wish to control the errors that will occur if a where statement is in effect, which refers to variables that are not present in &fromDS.

-- Peter Crawford