remove text within parentheses of macro variable using regex - sas

I'm unable to remove the parentheses and text within parentheses using %sysfunc(prxchange(...)). See example
%macro test(col=);
%local result;
%let result = %sysfunc(prxchange(s|\([^\)]+\)||i, -1, &col.));
%put &result.;
%mend test;
%let string = try (to) remove (this);
%test(col=%str(&string.))
ERROR: Expected close parenthesis after macro function invocation not found.
The expected output should be try remove (ignoring double spaces)
EDIT - thanks to #user667489, the simplest fix for this is
%macro test(col=);
%local result;
%let result = %sysfunc(compbl(%sysfunc(prxchange(s|%quote(\%([^\%)]+\%)||i), -1, &col.))));
%put &result.;
%mend test;
%let string = try (to) remove (this);
%test(col=%str(&string.));

I found a way of getting this to work more or less as-is:
%macro test(col=);
%local result regex;
%let regex = %sysfunc(prxparse(%str(s/\%([^\%)]+\%)//)));
%let result = %sysfunc(prxchange(&regex, -1, &col.));
%syscall prxfree(regex); /*Prevent memory leak*/
%put &result.;
%mend test;
%let string = try (to) remove (this);
%test(col=%str(&string.));
Masking the brackets within the regex with % symbols to prevent them from being parsed as SAS code and using a separate prxparse seems to do the trick.

Not sure if you can fix this because of the nature of how %sysfunc() has to convert the macro code into values to push in the function you are trying to call.
Why not just leave the PRXCHANGE() function call in actual SAS code instead?
For example you could have your macro generate a DATA step. I would recommend just passing in the NAME of the macro variable that has the value text and the NAME of the macro variable you want to assign the result into.
%macro test(invar,outvar);
%if not %symexist(&outvar) %then %global &outvar;
data _null_;
call symputx("&outvar",prxchange('s|\([^\)]+\)||i', -1,symget("&invar")));
run;
%mend test;
%let string = try (to) remove (this);
%test(invar=string,outvar=result);
%Put &=result;

Also try this:
%macro string(string);
%local new_string;
%let new_string=%sysfunc(prxchange(s/\s?\(\w+\)//,-1,&string));
%put &new_string;
%mend;
%string(%str(try (to) remove (this)));

Related

passing date variable to macro for sysfunc processing

below is my little problem to create a macro and passing in a date variable. Without using the date variable, it works with results as below.
%macro x();
%let i=-1;
%let dts = %sysfunc(today());
%put &dts; /*ok*/
%let yymm1 = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i));
%put &yymm1; /*ok*/
%let mth_beg = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i,B),date9.);
%let mth_end = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i,E),date9.);
%put &mth_beg &mth_end; /*01JAN2018 31JAN2018*/
/*** proc sql code below ** */
%mend;
%x();
log:
21231
21185
01JAN2018
31JAN2018
Now I create a macro around it and got the following error:
%macro x(dts1);
%let i=-1;
/*%let dts = %sysfunc(today());*/
%let dts = %sysfunc(&dts1);
%put &dts; /*ok*/
%let yymm1 = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i));
%put &yymm1; /*ok*/
%let mth_beg = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i,B),date9.);
%let mth_end = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i,E),date9.);
%put &mth_beg &mth_end; /*01JAN2018 31JAN2018*/
/*** proc sql code below ** */
%mend;
%x(16JAN2018);
ERROR: Function name missing in %SYSFUNC or %QSYSFUNC macro function reference.
JAN2018)
ERROR: Expected close parenthesis after macro function invocation not found.
))
ERROR: Expected close parenthesis after macro function invocation not found.
ERROR: Expected close parenthesis after macro function invocation not found.
,B),date9.) ,E),date9.)
I am not sure how to let SAS treat the date passed in as a recognized date. I know i probably used the sysfunc(&dts) wrongly or the date passed in need to adhere to certain format. i just want the date to replace today(). Can you help? I am a SAS newbie.
thanks
Wrap the date in " and end with a d. That will tell SAS to convert the string to a date:
%macro x(dts1);
%let i=-1;
/*%let dts = %sysfunc(today());*/
%let dts = "&dts1"d; /*Change here!*/
%put &dts; /*ok*/
%let yymm1 = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i));
%put &yymm1; /*ok*/
%let mth_beg = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i,B),date9.);
%let mth_end = %sysfunc(intnx(MONTH,&dts,&i,E),date9.);
%put &mth_beg &mth_end; /*01JAN2018 31JAN2018*/
/*** proc sql code below ** */
%mend;
%x(16JAN2018);
change %let dts = %sysfunc(&dts1); to
%let dts = %sysfunc(inputn(&dts1,date9. ));
SAS stores dates as the number of days since 01JAN1960. So if you do not attach a date format to the date value it will just look like an integer.
%let today=%sysfunc(today());
You can then use that integer anywhere you would use a date value.
%let next_month=%sysfunc(intnx(month,&today,1,b));
You can also represent dates by using a date literal. To make a date literal you represent the date value using something the DATE informat can read (like 16FEB2018, 16feb18, 16-FEB-2018, etc.) enclosed in quotes with the letter d appended.
%let today="%sysfunc(today(),date9)"d ;
%let date_string=13FEB2018;
%let date_value="&date_string"d ;
So date literals will work in SAS code and when you use the %sysfunc() macro function to call a SAS function (like INTNX) and they will work in the %sysevalf() macro function. But the %eval() macro function will not recognize date literals. So you will need to use %sysevalf() if you want use arithmetic or comparisons of date literals in macro logic.
%if %sysevalf(&today > '01JAN2018'd) %then ....
%let tomorrow=%sysevalf(&today +1);

Add "quotation" in SAS using Find and Replace

I have a lot of 6-digit numbers in a SAS program:
898300 898311 898312 898313 898314 898315 898316 898317 898321 898322 898323 898324 898331 898332 898333 898341 898342 898343
898400 898401 898402 898403 898500 898501 898502 898503 898600 898601 898602 898603 898604 898605 898606 898607 898608 898609
898610 898611 898612 898613 898614 898615 898616 898617 898700 898701 898702 898703 898704 898705 898706 898800 898801 898901
I would like to do a quick find and replace using Ctrl+H such that alle the 6-digit numbers are "quoted":
"898300" "898311" "898312" ...
etc.
I think doing a regular expression search is the way to go, but I am not able to identify the specific syntax. Anyone who knows what to do?
Thanks
Am sure this could be done in notepad (replace all multiple spaces with one, then replace a single space with " ") but seeing as you tagged SAS here is a SAS solution.
first, compile this macro:
/***
Converts a space delimited string into one with custom quotes / delimiters
#usage
%put %get_quoted_str(in_str=blah blah blah
,dlm=%str(,)
,quote=%str(%') );
returns: 'blah','blah','blah'
##
***/
%macro get_quoted_str(IN_STR=,DLM=,QUOTE=);
%local i item buffer;
%let i=1;
%do %while (%qscan(&IN_STR,&i,%str( )) ne %str() ) ;
%let item=%scan(&IN_STR,&i,%str( ));
%if %bquote(&QUOTE) ne %then %let item=&QUOTE%trim(&item)&QUOTE;
%else %let item=%trim(&item);
%if (&i = 1) %then %let buffer =&item;
%else %let buffer =&buffer&DLM&item;
%let i = %eval(&i+1);
%end;
&buffer
%mend;
then call as follows:
%put %get_quoted_str(IN_STR=898300 898311 898312 898313 898314 898315 898316 898317 898321 898322 898323 898324
898331 898332 898333 898341 898342 898343 898400 898401 898402 898403 898500 898501 898502 898503 898600 898601
898602 898603 898604 898605 898606 898607 898608 898609 898610 898611 898612 898613 898614 898615 898616 898617
898700 898701 898702 898703 898704 898705 898706 898800 898801 898901
,DLM=%str( ),QUOTE=%str(%")
);
which gives:
"898300" "898311" "898312" "898313" "898314" "898315" "898316" "898317" "898321" "898322" "898323" "898324" "898331" "898332"
"898333" "898341" "898342" "898343" "898400" "898401" "898402" "898403" "898500" "898501" "898502" "898503" "898600" "898601"
"898602" "898603" "898604" "898605" "898606" "898607" "898608" "898609" "898610" "898611" "898612" "898613" "898614" "898615"
"898616" "898617" "898700" "898701" "898702" "898703" "898704" "898705" "898706" "898800" "898801" "898901"
The above can then be copy pasted back into the program..
As long as the result is shorter than %SYSFUNC() limits I normally just use TRANWRD() function call for this. Compress multiple blanks to one first using COMPBL().
%let list=A B C D ;
%let qlist="%sysfunc(tranwrd(%sysfunc(compbl(&list)),%str( )," "))" ;

Create SAS macro to create a macro variable

I have created a SAS macro, macro A, that takes in a variable name and returns transformed versions of that name i.e. if you run %A(asdf) you get out asdf_log asdf_exp asdf_10. I want to write another macro, macro B, that takes the output from the first macro and appends it together into a new macro variable.
%macro B(varList, outputName);
%let &outputName =
%A(var1);
%A(var2);
;
%mend
Is almost what I want to do, except that it obviously doesn't compile.
I am also not sure if this is possible in SAS.
As a further complication, the input to macro B is a list of variable that I want to run macro A for and append into one long list of variable names.
Why? Because I have a macro that runs on a list of variables and I want to run it on a transformed variable list.
Example:
I have %let varList = x y; and I want as an output x_log x_exp x_10 y_log y_exp y_10. To do this I want two macros one, macro A, that returns the transformed variables names:
%macro A(var);
&var._log
&var._exp
&var._10
%mend
I can't get the second macro (B as written above) to work properly.
So if the inner macro is just returning characters, that is it doesn't actually generate any non macro statements, then why not make the outer one work the same way?
%macro inner(x);
&x._log &x._exp &x._10
%mend;
%macro outer(list);
%local i;
%do i=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&list));
%inner(%scan(&list,&i))
%end;
%mend outer;
%let want=%outer(X y Z);
This is not too hard. You need to loop over the values in varList, appending results to outputName. You also need to declare outputName as GLOBAL so it will be accessible outside %B
%macro B(varList, outputName);
%global &outputName;
%let &outputName = ;
%local i n var;
%let n = %sysfunc(countw(&varList));
%do i=1 %to &n;
%let var = %scan(&varList,&i);
%let &outputName = &outputName %A(&var);
%end;
%mend;

How to prevent CATx functions from evaluating expression

When calling CATT() function with %sysfunc, is there a way to stop it from evaluating an expression?
For example given the code:
%let date=10-13-2015;
%put %sysfunc(catt(The date Is:,&date));
I would like it to return:
The date Is:10-13-2015
Because 10-13-2015 is just a text string. But instead CATT() sees hyphen as a subtraction sign and evaluates it as a numeric expression, returning:
The date Is:-2018
I have tried macro quoting, but doesn't change anything, I suppose because I need to somehow hide the values from CATT(). Seems if any argument to CATT looks like an expression, it will be treated as such.
Another example:
%let value=2 and 3;
%put %sysfunc(catt(The value Is:,&value));
The value Is:1
Provided you can do so, just remove the comma - there's no need to separate it into an individual parameter (unless you're using catx() rather than catt():
%let date=10-13-2015;
%put %sysfunc(catt(The date Is: &date));
Personally, I think the best way to work is to store the date as a SAS date value and then use the second (optional) parameter of %sysfunc to apply the formatting. This provides better flexibility.
%let date = %sysfunc(mdy(10,13,2015));
%put The date Is: %sysfunc(sum(&date),mmddyyd10.);
If you are insistent on the original approach and are using catx(), then I don't know how to do it exactly. The closest I could get was to insert a piece of text so it couldn't be interpreted as an expression, and then remove that text afterwards using tranwrd. Pretty, ugly, and it leaves a space:
%let date=10-13-2015;
%let tmp=%sysfunc(catx(#, The date Is: , UNIQUE_STRING_TO_REMOVE&date ));
%let want=%sysfunc(tranwrd(&tmp, UNIQUE_STRING_TO_REMOVE, ));
%put &want;
Gives:
The date Is:# 10-13-2015
I also tried every combination of macro quoting, and scanned through the entire SAS function list and couldn't see any other viable options.
I don't see an easy way around this, unfortunately. I do see that you could in theory pass this through an FCMP function, though since FCMP doesn't allow true variable arguments, that isn't ideal either, but...
proc fcmp outlib=work.funcs.funcs;
function catme(delim $, in_string $) $;
length _result $1024;
length _new_delim $1;
_new_delim = scan(in_string,1,delim);
do _i = 1 to countc(in_string,delim);
_result = catx(_new_delim, _result, scan(in_string,_i+1,delim));
end;
return(_result);
endfunc;
quit;
options cmplib=work.funcs;
%let date=10-13-2015;
%put %sysfunc(catme(|,:|The date Is| &date.));
Or add quotes to the argument and then remove them after the CATx.
%sysfunc(dequote(%sysfunc(catt(.... ,"&date."))))
All messy.
The problem with %SYSFUNC() evaluating the arguments is not limited to the CAT() series of functions. Any function that accepts numeric values will result in SAS attempting to evaluate the expression provided.
This can be a useful feature. For example:
%let start_dt=10OCT2012 ;
%put %sysfunc(putn("&start_dt"d +1,date9));
You don't need to use CAT() functions to work with macro variables. Just expand the values next to each other and the are "concatenated".
%let date=10-13-2015;
%put The date Is:&date;
If you want to make a macro that works like the CATX() function then that is also not hard to do.
%macro catx /parmbuff ;
%local dlm return i ;
%if %length(&syspbuff) > 2 %then %do;
%let syspbuff = %qsubstr(&syspbuff,2,%length(&syspbuff)-2);
%let dlm=%qscan(&syspbuff,1,%str(,),q);
%let return=%qscan(&syspbuff,2,%str(,),q);
%do i=3 %to %sysfunc(countw(&syspbuff,%str(,),q));
%let return=&return.&dlm.%qscan(&syspbuff,&i,%str(,),q);
%end;
%end;
&return.
%mend catx;
%put %catx(|,a,b,c);
a|b|c
%put "%catx(",",a,b,c,d)";
"a","b","c","d"
Slightly less insane function-style macro without the dosubl:
%macro catx() /parmbuff;
%local rc dlm i params OUTSTR QWORD outstr;
%let SYSPBUFF = %qsubstr(&SYSPBUFF,2,%length(&SYSPBUFF)-2);
%let dlm = %qscan(&SYSPBUFF,1,%str(,));
%let params = %qsubstr(&SYSPBUFF,%index(&SYSPBUFF,%str(,))+1);
%let i = 1;
%let QWORD = %scan(&PARAMS,&i,%str(,));
%let OUTSTR = &QWORD;
%do %while(&QWORD ne);
%let i = %eval(&i + 1);
%let QWORD = %scan(&PARAMS,&i,%str(,));
%if &QWORD ne %then %let OUTSTR = &OUTSTR.&DLM.&QWORD;
%end;
%unquote(&OUTSTR)
%mend catx;
%put %catx(%str( ),abc,10 - 1 + 2,def);
Somewhat more insane but apparently working option - use %sysfunc(dosubl(...)) and lots of macro logic to create a function-style macro that takes input in the same way as %sysfunc(catx(...)), but forces catx to treat all input as text by quoting it and calling it in a data step.
%macro catxt() /parmbuff;
%local rc dlm i params QPARAMS QWORD outstr;
%let SYSPBUFF = %qsubstr(&SYSPBUFF,2,%length(&SYSPBUFF)-2);
%let dlm = %qscan(&SYSPBUFF,1,%str(,));
%let params = %qsubstr(&SYSPBUFF,%index(&SYSPBUFF,%str(,))+1);
%let i = 1;
%let QWORD = "%scan(&PARAMS,&i,%str(,))";
%let QPARAMS = &QWORD;
%do %while(&QWORD ne "");
%let i = %eval(&i + 1);
%let QWORD = "%scan(&PARAMS,&i,%str(,))";
%if &QWORD ne "" %then %let QPARAMS = &QPARAMS,&QWORD;
%end;
%let rc = %sysfunc(dosubl(%str(
data _null_;
call symput("OUTSTR",catx("&dlm",%unquote(&QPARAMS)));
run;
)));
&OUTSTR
%mend catxt;
%put %catxt(%str( ),abc,10 - 1 + 2,def);
Although this uses a data step to execute catx, dosubl allows the whole thing to be run in any place where you could normally use %sysfunc(catx(...)).

How do I work out the data type of my macro variable in SAS

How do I print out the data type of a macro variable in the log
%macro mymacro(dt2);
%LET c_mth = %SYSFUNC(intnx(month,&dt2.d,-1,e),date9.) ;
%put &c_mth;
%mend;
mymacro('01sep2014')
I have a bunch of macro variables assigned using a %let or into:
my problem is I'm trying to do a bunch of boolean condition on dates but I suspect that some of my variables are strings and some are dates
I have casted them in my code but to triple check there is surely a way to return something to the log
I want something similar to using str() or mode() or is.numeric() in R
H,
The SAS macro language is weird. : )
As Reeza said, macro variables do not have a type, they are all text.
But, if you use Boolean logic (%IF statement), and both operands are integers, the macro language will do a numeric comparison rather than a character comparison.
So you can use the INPUTN() function to convert the date strings to SAS dates (number of days since 01Jan1960), and then compare those. Here's an example, jumping off from your code:
%macro mymacro(dt1,dt2);
%local c_mth1 c_mth2 n_mth1 n_mth2;
%let c_mth1 = %sysfunc(intnx(month,&dt1.d,-1,e),date9.) ;
%let c_mth2 = %sysfunc(intnx(month,&dt2.d,-1,e),date9.) ;
%let n_mth1 = %sysfunc(inputn(&c_mth1,date9.)) ;
%let n_mth2 = %sysfunc(inputn(&c_mth2,date9.)) ;
%put &c_mth1 -- &n_mth1;
%put &c_mth2 -- &n_mth2;
%if &n_mth1<&n_mth2 %then %put &c_mth1 is before &c_mth2;
%else %put &c_mth1 is NOT before &c_mth2;
%mend;
Log from a sample call:
236 %mymacro('01feb1960','01mar1960')
31JAN1960 -- 30
29FEB1960 -- 59
31JAN1960 is before 29FEB1960
--Q.
Macro variables do not have a type, they are all text.
You have to make sure the variable is passed in a way that makes sense to the program and generates valid SAS code.
%let date1=01Jan2014;
%let date2=31Jan2014;
data _null_;
x = "&date1"d > "&date2"d;
y = "&date2"d > "&date1"d;
z = "&date2"d-"&date1"d;
put 'x=' x;
put 'y=' y;
put 'z=' z;
run;
Log should show:
x=0
y=1
z=30
If your macro variables resolve to date literals, you can use intck combined with %eval to compare them, e.g.
%let mvar1 = '01jan2015'd;
%let mvar2 = '01feb2015'd;
/*Prints 1 if mvar2 > mvar1*/
%put %eval(%sysfunc(intck(day,&mvar1,&mvar2)) > 0);