Date:         Fri, 9 Apr 2004 13:26:50 -0400
Reply-To:     "Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Subject:      Re: holding missing option
Comments: cc: Quentin McMullen <quentin_mcmullen@BROWN.EDU>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I have noticed this in formdlm, too.
a suggestion would be to write a sub-routine
that would read the values from Dictionary.options
and when the option is blank return the quoted space
I believe something like
select case when Value eq ' ' then ' ' else Value end
into   :List
from   Dictionary.options

Ron Fehd  the SQL into:macro maven  CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2@cdc.gov

Bureaucracy at its worst is better than bureaucracy at its best
-- Plato, in Beetle Bailey comic strip, 1985Mar01

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Quentin McMullen [mailto:quentin_mcmullen@BROWN.EDU]

> As Peter Crawford and others have shown, %sysfunc(getoption([option],
> keyword)) is often handy in macro programming as a way to
> store user- options prior to changing them, so that they may
> be restored. e.g.:
>
> 1    options missing='A';
> 2    %let restore=%sysfunc(getoption(missing, keyword));
> 3    options missing='B';
> 4    %put missing option is:%sysfunc(getoption(missing, keyword));
> missing option is:MISSING=B
> 5    %put will restore to:&restore;
> will restore to:MISSING=A
> 6    options &restore;
> 7    %put missing option is:%sysfunc(getoption(missing, keyword));
> missing option is:MISSING=A
>
> Often we specify missing=' ' so we get actual blanks in
> tables, not dots. Unfortunately this approach to restoring
> fails when the user has set missing=' ', because getoption
> returns missing=[one blank].  But on the attempt to restore,
> options missing= ; creates an error (SAS thinks you haven't
> specified the missing character, because the blank is not in quotes).
>
> 10   options missing=' ';
> 11   %let restore=%sysfunc(getoption(missing, keyword));
> 12   options missing='B';
> 13   %put missing option is:%sysfunc(getoption(missing, keyword));
> missing option is:MISSING=B
> 14   %put will restore to:&restore;
> will restore to:MISSING=
> 15   options &restore;
> NOTE: Line generated by the macro variable "RESTORE".
> 1     MISSING=
>       -------
>       14
> ERROR 14-12: Invalid option value ; for SAS option MISSING.
>
> 16   %put missing option is:%sysfunc(getoption(missing, keyword));
> missing option is:MISSING=B
>
> Seems to me my life would be easier if getoption gave me some
> way to return the missing character in quotes.  Same would
> also apply to formdlim.  Obviously in this case an easy workaround is:
>   options "&restore";
>
> But when writing a utility macro to store a list of options,
> this isn't as pretty.