> From: Quentin McMullen [mailto:quentin_mcmullen@BROWN.EDU] >"Quentin McMullen" <quentin_mcmullen@BROWN.EDU> wrote:

>Agree with Ron, that a macro without any parameters is a silly macro

ah, well, now that I have a lot of others behind me, I'll qualify my statement, just to keep things interesting.

macros occur in several places: * SAS-provided directories aka SASautos * site-provided directory of macros * project directory, i.e.: SASinitialFolder * within a job==program

a meander thru the SASautos directories will turn up some SAS-supplied macros without parameters

iirc AnnoMac is one good example C:\Program Files\SAS\SAS 9.1\core\sasmacro\annomac.sas Users of Annotate facility can bring in all the Annotate family of data step macros with the single line: %annomac which effectively %includes Annomac.sas and all the teeny macros within it. 9 of 40 macros within AnnoMac do not have parmeters. YeahBut, there is ample documentation in the Annotate manual.

a round-about kludge, yes.

I don't have a real problem with a macro without parameters **-- within a program --** that is, where one can read the macro and see what it is doing on the same page,

Ian Whitlocks paper in SUGI 29 http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi29/244-29.pdf contains several example of generating test data within macro loops

and one can find lots of macros within the SAS-L archives named like %DOIT %DOTHIS etc.

summary: macro without any parameters -- in project or site directories -- is a hard-to-understand-exactly-what-it-does macro.

check our most excellent archives: http://www.listserv.uga.edu/archives/sas-l.html search for: "%DOI" substring search: [X] subject contains: author's address: since: Jan 2004 until:

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