In SAS DIS I have set date parameters on a job. I tried setting the default values using the drop down menu provided, but each time I get the error
Syntax error, expecting one of the following: !, !!, &, *, **, +, -, /, <, <=, <>, =, >, ><, >=, AND, EQ, GE, GT, IN, LE, LT, MAX, MIN, NE, NG, NL, NOTIN, OR, ^=, |, ||, ~=.
I therefore decided to try to check if the parameter is null before proceeding, but none of my various attempts succeeded. Is there a way to do this with user-written code? Something like
if(&date_param = .) then do;
date = today();
else do;
date = &date_param;
end;
I tried this within a macro and it did not work.
Much Gratitude.
Assuming this is similar to a standard SAS macro variable, a couple of things.
First off, a null parameter would be literally blank, not a period (that's for numeric dataset variables). In a data step you could check it like so:
if "&date_param." = " " then do;
Second, depending on context you may need to do this in macro syntax. If you're setting another parameter, you may need to do:
%if &date_param. eq %then %do;
%let date=%sysfunc(today());
%end;
%else %do;
%let date = &date_param.;
%end;
%sysfunc lets you execute a data step function in macro code.
Related
I have a libY.tableX that have for each record some SQL strings like the ones below and other fields to write the result of their execution.
select count(*) from libZ.tableK
select sum(fieldV) from libZ.tableK
select min(dsitact) from libZ.tableK
This my steps:
the user is prompted to select a lib and table and the value is passed to the vars &sel_livraria and &sel_tabela;
My 1st block is a proc sql to get all the sql string from that record.
My 2nd block is trying to concrenate all that strings to use further on to update my table with the results. The macro %isBlank is the one recommended by Chang CHung and John King in their sas papper;
My 3th block is to execute that concrenated sql string and update the table with results.
%macro exec_strings;
proc sql noprint ;
select livraria, tabela, sql_tot_linhas, sql_sum_num, sql_min_data, sql_max_data
into :livraria, :tabela, :sql_tot_linhas, :sql_sum_num, :sql_min_data, :sql_max_data
from libY.tableX
where livraria='&sel_livraria'
and tabela='&sel_tabela';
quit;
%LET mystring1 =%str(tot_linhas=(&sql_tot_linhas));
%LET separador =%str(,);
%if %isBlank(&sql_sum_num) %then %LET mystring2=&mystring1;
%else %LET mystring2= %sysfunc(catx(&separador,&mystring1,%str(sum_num=(&sql_tot_linhas))));
%if %isBlank(&sql_min_data) %then %LET mystring3=&mystring2 ;
%else %LET mystring3= %sysfunc(catx(&separador,&mystring2,%str(min_data=(&sql_min_data))));
%if %isBlank(&sql_max_data) %then %LET mystring0=&mystring3;
%else %LET mystring0= %sysfunc(catx(&separador,&mystring3,%str(max_data=(&sql_min_data))));
%PUT &mystring0;
proc sql noprint;
update libY.tableX
set &mystring0
where livraria='&sel_livraria'
and tabela='&sel_tabela';
quit;
%mend;
My problem with the code above is that iam getting this error in my final concrenated string, &mystring0.
tot_linhas=(&sql_tot_linhas),sum_num=(&sql_tot_linhas),min_data=(&sql_min_data),max_data=(&sql_min_data)
_ _ _ _
ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: a name, a quoted string, a numeric constant, a datetime constant, a missing value, BTRIM, INPUT, PUT, SUBSTRING, USER.
Any help appreciated
Ok, so i follow Tom comments and ended with a proc sql solution that works!
proc sql;
select sql_tot_linhas,
(case when sql_sum_num = '' then "0" else sql_sum_num end),
(case when sql_min_data = '' then "." else sql_min_data end),
(case when sql_max_data = '' then "." else sql_max_data end)
into:sql_linhas, :sql_numeros, :sql_mindata, :sql_mxdata
from libY.tableX
where livraria="&sel_livraria"
and tabela="&sel_tabela";
quit;
proc sql;
update libY.tableX
set tot_linhas = (&sql_linhas),
sum_num =(&sql_numeros),
min_data = (&sql_mindata),
max_data = (&sql_mxdata)
where livraria="&sel_livraria"
and tabela="&sel_tabela";
quit;
Tks Tom :)
It is very hard to tell from your description what it is you are trying to do, but there are some clear coding issues in the snippets of code you did share.
First is that macro expressions are not evaluated in string literals bounded by single quotes. You must use double quotes.
where livraria="&sel_livraria"
Second is you do not want to use any of the CAT...() SAS functions in macro code. Mainly because you don't need them. If you want to concatenate values in macro code just type them next to each other. But also because they do not work well with %SYSFUNC() because they allow their arguments to be either numeric or character so %SYSFUNC() will have to guess from the strings you pass it whether it should tell the SAS function those strings are numeric or character values.
So perhaps something like:
%let mystring=tot_linhas=(&sql_tot_linhas);
%if not %isBlank(&sql_sum_num) %then
%LET mystring=&mystring,sum_num=(&sql_tot_linhas)
;
%if not %isBlank(&sql_min_data) %then
%LET mystring=&mystring,min_data=(&sql_min_data)
;
%if not %isBlank(&sql_max_data) %then
%LET mystring=&mystring,max_data=(&sql_max_data)
;
Note that I also cleaned up some obvious errors when modifying that code. Like the extra & in the value passed to the %ISBLANK() macro and the assignment of the min value to the max variable.
But it would probably be easier to generate the strings in a data step where you can test the values of the actual variables and if needed actually use the CATX() function.
I am trying to use a query result as a parameter for another query.
As below:
PROC SQL;
SELECT mydate INTO : varmydate FROM work.MyTable WHERE codigo = 1234;
QUIT;
PROC SQL;
SELECT * FROM work.MyOtherTable
WHERE codata = &varmydate;
QUIT;
But, unfortunately, this didn't work.
In this example, the varmydate variable will receive a value of type data in the first query.
96 PROC SQL;
97 SELECT codata FORMAT date9., valor FROM work.MyOtherTable WHERE codata = &varmydate;
NOTE: PROC SQL set option NOEXEC and will continue to check the syntax of statements.
NOTE: Line generated by the macro variable "VARMYDATE".
97 01MAR2020
_______
22
76
ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: !, !!, &, *, **, +, -, /, <, <=, <>, =, >, >=, AND, EQ, EQT, GE, GET,
GROUP, GT, GTT, HAVING, LE, LET, LT, LTT, NE, NET, OR, ORDER, ^=, |, ||, ~=.
ERROR 76-322: Syntax error, statement will be ignored.
98 QUIT;
After executing the first query, the command below:
%PUT &varmydate;
will have the following result:
01MAR2020
But the second query returns an error.
If I use the syntax below:
PROC SQL;
SELECT * FROM work.MyOtherTable
WHERE codata = '01MAR2020'd;
QUIT;
then it will work.
You did not indicate what the LOG window messaged regarding didn't work
I presume column mydate in table mytable is type character storing the date9. represention of a date. If it had instead been numeric variable with a date format the macro variable myvardate would have a value such as 21975
Thus, you need to resolve the date9 representation in a SAS date literal context
WHERE codata = "&myvardate"d;
Double quotes are needed because macro resolution will not occur within single quoted literals.
I'm using SYSPBUFF to pass through various numbers of parameters into a macro. Specifically, I am passing through a list of states. One of the states being used is Oregon or "OR" and that one state is causing me error.
I get the error "ERROR: A character operand was found in the %EVAL function or %IF condition where a numeric operand is required. The condition was: &ST^=
ERROR: The condition in the %DO %WHILE loop, &ST^=, yielded an invalid or missing value, . The macro will stop executing.
I've used all the various quoting masks to try to resolve this issue but none of it is working.
&STATES includes the following states:
AK,AZ,CA,HI,ID,NV,OR,WA
Here is my current code:
RSUBMIT;
PROC SQL;
connect to oracle
(path=DW user=&USER pw=&PW);
%macro DTCNT() / parmbuff;
%let i=1;
%let ST=%scan(&SYSPBUFF,&I);
%do %while (&ST^=);
CREATE TABLE MD_&ST._IP_ADJDT_CNTS_S1 AS
select *
from connection to oracle
(SELECT adjudication_date,
count (*) as LINE_CNT
from MD_r&NUM..&ST._IP_hdr_f
group by adjudication_date
order by adjudication_date);
%let i=%eval(&I+1);
%let ST=%scan(&SYSPBUFF,&I);
%end;
%mend DTCNT;
%DTCNT(&STATES);
disconnect from oracle;
QUIT;
ENDRSUBMIT;
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
The issue here is Oregon. Its abbreviation is OR, which is also a reserved word (oops!). Remember the macro language is just text that is then parsed like normal - so when it finds &ST and translates to OR, it sees that as
%do %while (or ^= )
which causes it to get confused since it doesn't see anything to use with or.
You can use macro quoting here to cause SAS not to treat it like the boolean operator. %SUPERQ is the goto one for me, but a few of them should work.
Here's an example. I added some extra stuff to scan also to handle the parens.
%let states=AK,AZ,CA,HI,ID,NV,OR,WA;
%macro DTCNT() / parmbuff;
%let i=1;
%put &=syspbuff.;
%let ST=%scan(&SYSPBUFF,&I,%str(%(%),));
%put &=st.;
%do %while (%superq(ST)^=);
%put &=st;
%let i=%eval(&i.+1);
%let ST=%scan(&SYSPBUFF,&I,%str(%(%),));
%end;
%mend DTCNT;
%DTCNT(&STATES);
There is a great paper on how to test for empty macro variables, Chang Chung's Is This Macro Parameter Blank.
For your simple program I find it much easier to just use %length() to test for empty macro variables.
%do %while (%length(&ST));
Consider the following text value '1/3/2016' from a dataset. This is a badly formatted date value that i cannot correct using ANYDTDTE. as I am on SAS 9.0. In this string the day and month are also the wrong way round. This is actually 03JAN2016 in date9. format
Therefore I have attempted to correct all of the above with the following macro:
%macro date_cats();
proc sql noprint;
select scan(matchdate,1,'/'), scan(matchdate,2,'/'), strip(scan(matchdate,3,'/')) into :month, :day, :year
from test;
quit;
%let padder = 0;
%if %length(&month) < 2 %then
%let month = %sysfunc(cats(&padder., &month.));
%put &month.;
%if %length(&day) < 2 %then
%let day = %sysfunc(cats(&padder., &day.));
%put &day.;
%put %sysfunc(cats(&day., &month., &year.));
%mend;
%date_cats();
The three %put statements produce the following in the log:
01
03
132016
Can anyone tell me in the final put statement why the final CATS statement is either dropping the added '0' character or reverting back to the macro variables being joined before they were padded out?
Thanks
Don't use CATS() to generate macro variables.
First it is totally unneeded since you can concatenate macro variable values by just expanding their values next to each other. Replace
%let month = %sysfunc(cats(&padder., &month.));
with
%let month = &padder.&month.;
Second when trying to evaluate the arguments to functions like CATS() that can take either numeric or character values %SYSFUNC() will attempt to evaluate your strings to see if they are numbers. In your case they are numbers so the leading zeros disappear. In other cases you can cause SAS to generate warning messages.
Third, if you really want to convert a string like 'M/D/Y' into a string like 'DMY' then assuming the string contains valid dates then just use formats to do the conversion.
%let have=1/20/2015 ;
%let want=%sysfunc(inputn(&have,mmddyy10),ddmmyyn8);
CATS is seeing numbers and automatically converting them, unhelpfully.
Generally for macro vars you can use the following
%put &day.&month.&year.;
I am writing a macro that at some point calls some proc SQL code. I want the user to be able to specify arbitrary proc sql options (e.g. inobs=100 could be one of the input arguments to my macro).
I am having a very hard time quoting an argument that has an equality '=' character.
One of the issues is that I should also check if the macro argument is empty or not, and if it is not empty, only then add the specified options to the sql statement.
Below is an example non-working test that does not work and throws the
ERROR: The keyword parameter INOBS was not defined with the macro.
I have read this (http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi28/011-28.pdf) and other SUGI's and tried many possible ways to quote and call the macro.
If somebody could provide a working example of the below function it would be greatly appreciated.
options mprint mlogic;
data have;
length x $8;
input x;
datalines;
one
two
three
;
proc sql inobs=2;
create table sql_output as
select *
from have;
quit;
%macro pass_parameter_with_equal_sign(table=, sqlOptions=);
proc sql
%if "%left(%trim(&sqlOptions.))" ne "" %then %do;
&sqlOptions.
%end;
/* the semicolon to end the proc sql statement */
;
create table macro_output as
select *
from have;
quit;
%mend;
%pass_parameter_with_equal_sign(table=have, sqlOptions=%str(inobs=2))
title "SQL output:";
proc print data=sql_output; run;
title "Macro output:";
proc print data=macro_output; run;
If you remove the %if condition as follows it should work:
%macro pass_parameter_with_equal_sign(table=, sqlOptions=);
proc sql
&sqlOptions.
/* the semicolon to end the proc sql statement */
;
create table macro_output as
select *
from have;
quit;
%mend;
The %if you have used is to check if &sqlOptions is not blank, this shouldn't matter if you use it as it is because its unconditional usage will give either:
proc sql inobs=2; /* in the case of &sqlOptions=inobs=2 */
or if there is no value supplied for &sqlOptions then you should see:
proc sql; /* i.e. no options specified */
So it should work with or without an argument.
Amir's solution is probably correct for your particular use case. But to answer the more general question, we need to look to the seminal paper on macro parameter testing, Chang Chung's Is This Macro Parameter Blank?.
His example C8 is the right one for you here, though some of the others will also work.
%if %sysevalf(%superq(param)=,boolean) %then ... /* C8 */
For example:
%macro test_me(param=);
%if %sysevalf(%superq(param)=,boolean) %then %put Empty;
%else %put Not Empty;;
%mend test_me;
%test_me(param=);
%test_me(param=MyParam);
%test_me(param=param=5);
%SUPERQ is most useful here because it avoids resolving the macro parameter. Instead, it keeps it as a macro parameter value - fully unresolved - and allows you to work with it in that fashion; so you have no risk of that pesky equal sign bothering you.
His C4 (just using SUPERQ without SYSEVALF) also works in this case, although he explains a few situations where it may have difficulty.
Ahh this was actually a tricky little problem you ran into. The issue was actually being caused by the calls to %trim() and %left().
Removing these results in code that works as intended (note I also removed the macro quoting around the parameter):
%macro pass_parameter_with_equal_sign(table=, sqlOptions=);
proc sql
%if "&sqlOptions" ne "" %then %do;
&sqlOptions
%end;
/* the semicolon to end the proc sql statement */
;
create table macro_output as
select *
from &table;
quit;
%mend;
%pass_parameter_with_equal_sign(table=sashelp.class, sqlOptions= inobs=2);
We can re-create the issue you were experiencing like so:
%put %trim(inobs=1);
Because the parameter was resolving to inobs=1, and %trim() doesn't have any named parameters, it was throwing a hissy fit. To correctly pass in a string that contains "inobs=1" we can do so like this:
%let param = inobs=1;
%put %trim(%str(¶m));
Note: Amir's solution of removing the %if statement altogether is also the best way to design code like this. I'm just providing more details as to why you were having this issue.
Additional Explanation 1 - Why %left() and %trim are not needed
The top code snippet provides the same intended functionality as your original code that had the "%left(%trim(&sqlOptions.))". This is because beginning and ending whitespace is dropped from macro variables (including macro parameters) unless it is explicitly retained by using macro quoting. A simple example to show this is:
%let param = lots of spaces ;
%put ***¶m***;
Gives:
***lots of spaces***
You can see that the internal whitespace is kept, but the left and right padding are gone. To keep whitespace, we can simply use the %str() function.
%let param = %str( lots of spaces );
%put ***¶m***;
Gives:
*** lots of spaces ***
Additional Explanation 2 - Working with macros containing whitespace
If you actually did have whitespace on a macro variable that you needed to remove because it was quoted, and you wanted to use %left() and %trim() to do so, then things get a little wacky. Our variable can be created like so:
%let param = %str( inobs = 2 );
You can see we already have quoted the value with %str() in order to create it. This means we can now call one of the functions without having to quote it again:
%put %trim(¶m); * ALREADY QUOTED AT CREATION SO THIS WORKS FINE;
However, if we then try and feed the result into the %left() function we're back to the original issue:
%put %left(%trim(¶m)); * OOPS. DOESNT WORK;
Now I'm guessing here but I believe this is most likely because the %trim() function removes any macro quoting prior to returning a result. Kind of like this:
%put %unquote(%trim(¶m));
This can be circumvented by re-quoting the returned result using %str() again:
%put %left(%str(%trim(¶m)));
... or wrapping the original parameter with a %nrstr():
%let param = %str( inobs = 2 );
%put %left(%trim(%nrstr(¶m)));
... or using %sysfunc() to call a datastep function:
%put %sysfunc(compress(¶m));