Dear SAS-L-ers,

Jianling Wang posted the following:

> Hi All, > > I need to run a macro with three positional parameters like this: > > %macro M (positional-1, positional-2, positional-3); > macro codes here > %mend M; > > My problem is that I need to run this macro 200 times, > while the values of the positional parameters were stored in > a data set of three variables and 200 observations. Is there > a way to tell SAS to look for the values in the data set > instead of me manually write 200 lines of code calling to the > macro M (the only way I know now to accomplish the task)? > > I appreciate your time and attention to this!! > Jianling, that is an interesting question. I like to do this along these lines:

/* Create Temporary flat file to hold Macro invocations */ filename holdmacs TEMP;

/* Create Macro invocations by reading file with vars */ data _null_; set jianling.threevariables;

file holdmacs;

length outline $100;

outline = '%M(' || positional_1 || ', ' || positional_2 || ', ' || positional_3 || ');';

put outline;

run;

/* Invoke all instances of the Macro from the flatfile */ %INCLUDE holdmacs;

You may have to futz around with the spacing (eg. trim/left), commas, etc. in OUTLINE, but the general methodology should be sound.

This is better illustrated in my SUGI 30 Coders' Corner paper: Automatically Process a Varying Number Of New Data Files From a "Data Directory" <<http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi30/035-30.pdf>>

Jianling, best of luck in all of your SAS endeavors!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Michael A. Raithel "The man who wrote the book on performance" E-mail: MichaelRaithel@westat.com

Author: Tuning SAS Applications in the MVS Environment

Author: Tuning SAS Applications in the OS/390 and z/OS Environments, Second Edition http://www.sas.com/apps/pubscat/bookdetails.jsp?catid=1&pc=58172

Author: The Complete Guide to SAS Indexes

http://www.sas.com/apps/pubscat/bookdetails.jsp?catid=1&pc=60409

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Luck is the residue of design. - Branch Rickey +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++