Dear SAS-lers,

I wanted to thank Karsten Self, Jerome Kramer, Martyn Byng, Tom Abernathy Randy Childs, Anthony Ayiomamtis, Greg Silva and anyone else I might have forgotten for their help on fixing my macro. Following is an excerpt from my original message: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am trying to create 28 variables marking the start and end of 14 quarters, based on a patient's admission date. The variables for the start of the quarters are named q1start--q14start, and the variables for the end of the quarters are named q1end--q14end. In the code below, the macro %countall creates the variable names for the start and end of the quarters. This macro seems to be working as I would like it to. In the macro %qassign, I am trying to get SAS to assign values to the variables. This macro is not working.

*Create inpatient dataset for clients with admissions in each period;

data inpat1; set cts.inp;

call symput('scount',left(put(0,2.))); call symput('ecount',left(put(0,2.))); call symput('iter',left(put(1,2.))); run;

proc sort data=inpat1; by admdate; run;

%macro countall;

%do i=1 %to 14;

%let scount=%eval(&scount + 1); %let ecount=%eval(&ecount + 1); %let start=q&scount.start; %let end=q&ecount.end; %let iter=%eval(&iter + 1);

%put &scount &ecount &start &end &iter;

%end;

%mend countall;

%countall

data inpat2; set inpat1;

call symput('start',%eval(mdy(7,1,91))); call symput('end',%eval(mdy(9,30,91))); call symput('itr',left(put(1,2.)));

%macro qassign;

%do i=1 %to 14;

%if (admdate lt &start and admdate ne .) %then %do;

%let start=%eval(&start + 91); %let end=%eval(&end + 91); %let itr=%eval(&itr + 1);

%put &start &end mmddyy10.; %end; %end;

%mend qassign;

%qassign

run; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Several people reminded me of the intnx function, which will calculate a value by advancing a value or variable by a specified number of time intervals. This of course, worked much better than adding 91 days to each of the "start" and "end" variables. Someone told me that the macro %qassign was not working as I thought, and that I was just ending up with one "start" and one "end" variable and not 14 "start" and "end" variables, as I had thought. Several people told me that to do what I wanted I needed an array, and not a macro to create the "start" and "end" variables. The code that does this follows:

*Create inpatient dataset for clients with admissions in each period;

data inpat1; set cts.inp;

array start{*} q1start q2start q3start q4start q5start q6start q7start q8start q9start q10start q11start q12start q13start q14start; array end{*} q1end q2end q3end q4end q5end q6end q7end q8end q9end q10end q11end q12end q13end q14end;

do i=2 to 14; start{i}=intnx('qtr',start{i-1},1); end{i}=intnx('qtr',end{i-1},1); end; run;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did, however, need a macro to do the rest of the work, because I wanted to generate the code which would assign a value to 14 variables (Originally, I was trying to assign a value to 14 "start" and 14 "end" variables. After further thought, I realized that what I wanted to do was assign a number to a variable called "quarter," based on a patient's admission date. I apologize for any confusion this might have caused.) The code to do this follows, and was mostly written by Randy Childs.

%macro qassign(count=);

%do i=1 %to &count; %str(if (admdate ge q&i.start and admdate ne .) then do; quarter=&i; end;)

%end;

%mend qassign;

data inpat2; set inpat1;

%qassign(count=14)

run;

As I understand it, assigning a value of 14 to the macro variable count when the macro executes casues the code to be written and executed 14 times for each of the 14 "start" variables. Based on the admission date, each record is assigned to a quarter.

This group is a great resource for anyone trying out a new (to them) function or module in SAS I certainly have learned a lot and have a much better understanding of macros form trying out people's suggestions. Once again, thanks to everyone for their help.

Lorna Simon

Lorna J. Simon, M.A., Research Associate Center for Psychosocial & Forensic Services Research Department of Psychiatry University of Massachusetts Medical School 55 Lake Avenue North Worcester, MA 01655-0329

Phone: 508-856-5498, 508-793-1550 FAX: 508-754-5007 email: Lorna.Simon@banyan.ummed.edu