Hi Dale,

See also my macro PreZeros with some additional capabilities http://home.hccnet.nl/jim.groeneveld/software/SASmacro/PreZeros.zip

Regards - Jim. -- Jim Groeneveld, Netherlands Statistician, SAS consultant home.hccnet.nl/jim.groeneveld

On Thu, 8 Feb 2007 21:44:54 -0800, Dale McLerran <stringplayer_2@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>Art, > >Precisely! I knew it was simple, but I just couldn't come up >with the putn function. > >Thanks, > >Dale > >--- Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET> wrote: > >> Dale, >> >> Couldn't you just use something like: >> >> %let ii=%sysfunc(putn(&I,z3.)); >> test_&ii._1 test_&ii._2 >> >> HTH, >> Art >> ---------- >> On Thu, 8 Feb 2007 17:33:29 -0800, Dale McLerran >> <stringplayer_2@YAHOO.COM> wrote: >> >> >Hi all, >> > >> >I know that this should be simple, but I can't recall how it is >> >done. Suppose that there is an ascii file with two columns of >> >replicate information from 287 subjects. These 574 variables >> >should be read into a data set with names: >> > >> > test_001_1 test_001_2 test_002_1 test_002_2 ... test_287_2 >> > >> >Now, I can use a macro loop something like the following: >> > >> > input %do i=1 %to 287; >> > test_&i._1 test_&i._2 >> > %end;; >> > >> >But this does not quite work. I need to format the index variable >> >using a Z3. format so that when &i=1, then the macro code >> >evaluates to 001, etc. What do I need to express a formatted >> >value in place of the reference to macro variable i? >> > >> >I can use a kludge where I construct a macro variable j as 00&i >> >if &i<10 and as 0&i if 10<=&i<100. I could then reference macro >> >variable j instead of macro variable i. But I would prefer to >> >use a format to construct the correct reference if I can. >> > >> >Thanks, >> > >> >Dale