Thanks, Shiling ! What you suggested might be a good way for creating adhoc "%picture"macros for various special situations. This might lead to many small macros of this type, which will be often hard to reuse. What I am looking for is a single generic macro that can create various formating string with one type of macro call. I think the key part is how to parsing and assembling the format contents provided by fmt=.

LZ

shiling99@yahoo.com wrote: > Zhang, > > Here is an example to illustrate the idea, you may modify as needed. > > Hope this helps. > > 1 proc format; > 2 picture num(round) > 3 low-high = "0000000009)" ( prefix = "(" ) > 4 ; > NOTE: Format NUM has been output. > 5 picture pct(round) > 6 low-high = "0000000009.0%)" ( prefix = "(" ) > 7 ; > NOTE: Format PCT has been output. > 8 run; > > NOTE: PROCEDURE FORMAT used (Total process time): > real time 0.12 seconds > cpu time 0.02 seconds > > > 9 run; > 10 > 11 %macro putpic(num,pct); > 12 cats(put(&num,num.),put(&pct,pct.)) > 13 %mend; > 14 > 15 data _null_; > 16 do i = 1 to 10; > 17 num=ranuni(100)*50; > 18 pct=ranuni(100)*30; > 19 num_pct=%putpic(num,pct); > 20 put num pct num_pct; > 21 end; > 22 run; > > 24.81284911 0.2661469533 (25)(0.3%) > 49.121530447 28.19593613 (49)(28.2%) > 8.0128893294 27.832049256 (8)(27.8%) > 14.895865747 5.0751684583 (15)(5.1%) > 48.97013104 19.699654803 (49)(19.7%) > 46.592852891 11.611564407 (47)(11.6%) > 16.971554266 21.553730388 (17)(21.6%) > 35.119288035 21.581892451 (35)(21.6%) > 13.058945333 29.788892786 (13)(29.8%) > 33.824312074 19.522555638 (34)(19.5%) > NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): > real time 0.01 seconds > cpu time 0.02 seconds > > > lzhang9830@yahoo.com wrote: > > Hi All, > > I would like to create a "%picture" macro that will extend SAS > > picture format functionality to multiple numeric variables. The > > %picture has two parameters like this > > > > %picture(VAR1 VAR2.. VARn, fmt= xx or xx.x with other special > > characters such as ( ) % ) > > > > Here are some examples of %picture usage: > > > > 1. %picture(138 35.4, fmt=xxx (xx.x%) ) ==> 138 (35.4%) > > > > 2. %picture(22.3 21. 7 24.6 fmt=xx.x [xx.x, xx.x]) ==> 22.3 [21.7, > > 24.6] > > > > 3. %picture(11 100, fmt=xx/xxx) ==> 11/100 > > > > The %picture is actually similiar to the Printf (..) function in > > C or C++ if you know C /C++ langauges. You may change the style of > > macro parameter style if you like. I am just looking for an easy > > solution for this type of macro. Your help and advice will be very > > much appreciated. Thanks. > > > > LZ