Paul,

I wrote a paper for the Forum on the topic. See http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2007/047-2007.pdf

Ed

Edward Heaton, Senior Systems Analyst, Westat (An Employee-Owned Research Corporation), 1650 Research Boulevard, RW-4541, Rockville, MD 20850-3195 Voice: (301) 610-4818 Fax: (301) 294-3879 mailto:EdHeaton@Westat.com http://www.Westat.com

-----Original Message----- From: owner-sas-l@listserv.uga.edu [mailto:owner-sas-l@listserv.uga.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Walker Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 5:22 PM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Work Library Files for a Macro System

Hello SAS-L,

I am developing / have developed a set of macros, aka "macro system". Most of the macros use the WORK library as the primary location to create temp datasets which are then deleted at the conclusion of the macro. But one thing that tends to cause a problem with macros is how you name the temporary datasets written to the work library. You might over-write other files that already exist in the work library. Or, if you need to recursively call a macro, at each recursion you may be over-writing the dataset from the last recursion.

I have some ideas about how to solve this problem: [1] Name all the temp datasets with a prefix according to the name of the macro [2] Add a timestamp (date+time) integer to the dataset name [3] Put error checking logic into the macro so that it only runs if the datasets which it will create do not already exist [4] Need more ideas...

Essentially, all files written to the work library are "Global" in scope for a SAS session and I need to prevent conflicts between them. I would like to create "Local" scope datasets for each time a macro is invoked.

Any suggestions??? For anyone who has developed macro systems, how have you handled temp dataset naming conventions to increase the reliability of the system?

- Paul