Using SAS macro to import multiple txt files with sequential names - sas

I have 4 txt files that need to be loaded to SAS and save them as 4 sas files. Here are how the text files look like: cle20130805.txt, cle20130812.txt, cle20130819.txt and cle20130826.txt . I used a % Do loop under % Macro in order to get the 4 files imported with only one invoke of the Macro. So Here is my code:
%macro cle;
%do i=20130805 %to 20130826 %by 7;
Data cleaug.cle&i;
infile "home/abc/cle&i..txt" dlm= '|' dsd firstobs=1 obs=100;
input a_no b_no c_no;
run;
%end;
%mend cle;
%cle
I am expect to have 4 sas file saved with only invoke the marco once. However it just can't run successfully. Any ideas where am I doing wrong in the code?
Thanks,

I don't recommend you try to write one macro to import all four files. Either it will be a specific macro you only ever use once - in which case you could just write this by hand and save the time you've already spent - or it will be something you have to modify every single month or whatever that you use it.
Instead, make the macro something that does precisely one file, but includes the information needed to call it easily. In this case, it sounds like you need one parameter: the date, so 20130805 or whatnot. Then give it a reasonable name that really says what it does.
%macro import_files(date=);
Data cleaug.cle&date.;
infile "home/abc/cle&date..txt" dlm= '|' dsd firstobs=1 obs=100;
input a_no b_no c_no;
run;
%mend import_files;
Now you call it:
%import_files(date=20130805)
%import_files(date=20130812)
%import_files(date=20130819)
%import_files(date=20130826)
Just as easy as the macro you wrote above, even hardcoding the four dates. If the dates are predictable in some fashion, you can generate the macro calls very easily as well (if there are more than 4, for example). You could do a directory listing of the location where the files are, or call the macro from a data step using CALL EXECUTE if you really like looping.

Related

How to copy data afrer "cards"/"datalines" in SAS

I have to perform statistical analysis on a file with hundreds of observations and 7 variables(columns)on SAS. I know that it is necessary to insert all the observations after "cards" or "datalines". But I can't write them all obviously. How can I do? Moreover, the given data file already is .sas7bdat.
Then, since (in my case) the multiple correspondence analysis requires only six of the seven variables, does this affect what I have to write in INPUT or/and in CARDS?
You only use CARDS when you're trying to manually write a data set. If you already have a SAS data set (sas7bdat) you can usually use that directly (there are some exceptions but likely don't apply here).
First create a libname to the folder where the file is:
libname myFiles 'path to fodler with sas file';
Then load it into your work library - this is a temporary space that is cleaned up when you're done so no files here are saved permanently.
This copies it over to that library - which is often faster.
data myFileName;
set myFiles.myFileName;
run;
You can just work with the file from that library by referencing it as myFiles.myFileName in your code.
proc means data=myFiles.myFileName;
run;
This should get you started, but you should take the SAS free e-course to understand the basics, it will save you time overall.
Just tell SAS to use the dataset. INPUT statement (and CARDS/DATALINES or INFILE statement) are for reading from text files.
proc corresp data='/my directory/mydataset.sas7bdat' .... ;
...
run;
You could also make a libref that points to the directory and use two level name to reference the dataset.
libname myfiles '/my directory/';
proc corresp data=myfiles.mydataset .... ;
...
run;

Call sas program in a loop

I have a SAS program . I need to call the SAS program multiple times, each time passing a different date parameter.
Am I correct that first I need to wrap the entire .sas file into some kind of macro and then I need to call that macro repeatedly? Or is there a way to do it without wrapping it in a macro ?
In short: maybe, yes.
Maybe:
If you have specific program you wish to launch each time with certain parameter that can be done from command line. There is sysparm-variable, which is imported to the program, like following:
> <path>SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\sas.exe -sysparm "21537"
which in SAS code is equivalent to:
%let sysparm = 21537;
This enables you to restrict, label data wit your input as much need be. Also you can run your program as many times with any parameter you wish. What we do is parse the Sysparm to allow multiple parameter to be passed.
For more on Sysparm, see documentation
Yes:
If you want to run your code mulitple times in a session you ideally want something like:
%macro do_stuff(your_date):
%put Processing date &your_date.;
data data_&your_date.;
set someLib.begin;
if your_date < data_date < (your_date-20) ;
run;
/*And so forth....*/
%mend do_stuff;
%do_stuff(date_1);
%do_stuff(date_2);
%do_stuff(date_3);

use a for loop applying a condition to upload multiple files in SAS [duplicate]

This code executes fine when Run as a SAS program:
%MyMacro(foo_val, bar_val, bat_val);
I have created a table using:
DATA analyses;
input title : $32. weight : $32. response : $32.;
datalines;
foo1 bar1 bat1
foo2 bar2 bat2
;
I want to execute MyMacro once for each row of the analyses table.
The following code appears to only pass the string values title, weight and response (rather than the data values foo1 etc.) to my macro (tested with calls to the %put command) :
DATA _NULL_ ;
set analyses;
%MyMacro(title, weight, response);
RUN;
How can I invoke the macro once per record of the analyses table whilst passing data values as arguments to the macro? The intention is to actually run this for a very large number of analyses so the solution must scale appropriately to many more records in the analyses table.
This in part depends on what your macro is doing. If we assume that your macro is doing something that is intended to be run outside of a data step (ie, it's not just assigning a data step variable), then you have several options.
CALL EXECUTE
PROC SQL: SELECT INTO macro variable
Write macro calls into an %INCLUDE file
DOSUBL
CALL EXECUTE has already been explained, and is a good option for some cases. It has some downsides, however, particularly with macro timing, that requires some extra care to protect in some cases - particularly when you are creating macro variables inside your macro. Quentin in his comments shows a way to get around this (adding %NRSTR to the call), but I find that I prefer to only use CALL EXECUTE when there's an advantage to doing so over the other methods - particularly, if I want to use SAS data step techniques (such as FIRST or LAST, for example, or some form of looping) in creating my macro calls, or when I have to do things in a data step anyway and can avoid the overhead of reading the file another time. If I'm just writing a data step like yours above - data something, set something, call execute, run - I wouldn't use it.
PROC SQL SELECT INTO is typically what I use for list processing (which is largely what this is). I like SQL's simplicity a bit better when doing things that aren't too complicated; for example, you can get just one version of each macro call easily with DISTINCT without having to explicitly write a proc sort nodupkey or use first/last processing. It also has the advantage for debugging that you can write all of your macro calls to your results window (if you don't add noprint), which is a bit easier to read than the log for me if I'm trying to see why my calls didn't get generated properly (and doesn't take any extra PUT statements).
proc sql;
select catx(',','%macro(',arg1,arg2,arg3)||')'
into :mvarlist separated by ' '
from dataset;
quit;
&mvarlist.
That runs them quite simply, and has no timing issues (As you're just writing a bunch of macro calls out).
The main downside to this method is that you have a maximum of 64k characters in a macro variable, so if you're writing a huge number of these you'll run into that. In that case use CALL EXECUTE or %INCLUDE files.
%INCLUDE files are largely useful either as replacement for SELECT INTO when the call is over the character limit, or if you find it useful to have a text file to look at with your calls (if you're running this in batch mode for example, this could be easier to get to and/or parse than log or listing output). You just write your calls out to a file, and then %INCLUDE that file.
filename myfile temp; *or a real file if you want to look at it.;
data _null_;
set dataset;
file myfile;
length str $200;
str=catx(',','%macro(',arg1,arg2,arg3)||')';
put str;
run;
%include myfile;
I don't really use this much anymore, but it's a common technique used particularly by older SAS programmers so good to know.
DOSUBL is a relatively new method, and to some extent can be used to replace CALL EXECUTE as its default behavior is typically closer to what you expect intuitively than CALL EXECUTE's. The doc page has really the best example for how this works differently; basically, it fixes the timing issue by letting each separate call look import and export the macro variables from/to the calling environment, meaning that each iteration of DOSUBL is run at a distinct time versus CALL EXECUTE where everything is run in one bunch and the macro environment is 'fixed' (ie, any reference to a macro variable is fixed at run time, unless you escape it messily with %NRSTR).
One more thing worth mentioning is RUN_MACRO, a part of the FCMP language. That allows you to completely run a macro and import its contents back to the data step, which is an interesting option in some cases (for example, you could wrap a call around a PROC SQL that selected a count of something, and then import that to the dataset as a variable, all in one datastep). It's applicable if you're doing this for the purpose of calling a macro to assign a data step variable, not to run a process that does things that don't need to be imported into the data step, but it's something worth considering if you do want that data back all in the dataset that called the process.
You could use CALL EXECUTE:
data _null_;
set analyses;
call execute('%nrstr(%MyMacro('||title||','||weight||','||response||'))');
run;
You can put the variables values into macrovariables and then call your %MyMacro many times (the number of obs in your dataset) with the macrovariables as argument:
Data :
DATA analyses;
input title : $32. weight : $32. response : $32.;
datalines;
foo1 bar1 bat1
foo2 bar2 bat2
;
run;
Code to run macro :
data _NULL_;
set analyses end=fine;
call symput("ARGUMENT"||compress(_N_),catx(",",title,weight,response));
if fine then call symput("NLOOPS",compress(_N_));
run;
%*PUT &ARGUMENT1;
%*PUT &ARGUMENT2;
%MACRO MAIN;
%DO L=1 %TO &NLOOPS;
%MyMacro(&&ARGUMENT&L);
%END;
%MEND;
%MAIN;

Stop sas macro from overwriting different imported csv files as the same sas dataset

I found a macro and have been using it to import datasets that are given to me in csv format. Now I need to edit it because I have datasets that have an id number in them and I want sas datasets with the same name.
THE csvs are named things like IDSTUDY233_first.csv So I want the sas dataset to be IDSTUDY233_first. It should appear in my work folder.
I thought it would just create a sas dataset for each csv named IDSTUDY233_first or something like that. (and so on and so forth for each additional study). However it's naming this way.
IDSTUDY_FIRST
and over rights itself for every ID. I am newer to macros and have been trying to figure out WHY it does this and how to fix it. Suggestions?
%let subdir=Y:\filepath\; *MACRO VARIABLE FOR FILEPATH;
filename dir "&subdir.*.csv "; *give the file the name from the path that your at whatever the csv is named;
data new; *create the dataset new it has all those filepath names csv names;
length filename fname $ 200;
infile dir eof=last filename=fname;
input ;
last: filename=fname;
run;
proc sort data=new nodupkey; *sort but don't keep duplicate files;
by filename;
run;
data null; *create the dataset null;
set new;
call symputx(cats('filename',_n_),filename); *call the file name for this observation n;
call symputx(cats('dsn',_n_),compress(scan(filename,-2,'\.'), ,'ka')); *call the dataset for this file compress then read the file;
call symputx('nobs',_n_); *call for the number of observations;
run;
%put &nobs.; *but each observation in;
%macro import; *start the macro import;
%do i=1 %to &nobs; *Do for each fie to number of observations;
proc import datafile="&&filename&i" out=&&dsn&i dbms=csv replace;
getnames=yes;
run;
%end;
%mend import;
%import
*call import macro;
As you can see I added my comments of my understanding. Like I said macros are new to me. I may be incorrect in my understanding. I am guessing the problem is either in
call symputx(cats('dsn',_n_),compress(scan(filename,-2,'\.'), ,'ka'));
or it is in the import statement probably out=&&dsn&i since it rapidly over writes the previous SAS files until it does every one. It's just I need all the sas files not just the last 1.
My guess is that you are right, it is to do with this line:
call symputx(cats('dsn',_n_),compress(scan(filename,-2,'\.'), ,'ka'));
The gotcha is in the arguments passed to compress. Compress can be used to remove or keep certain characters in a string. In the above example, they are using it to just keep alphabetic characters by passing in the 'ka' modifiers. This is effectively causing files with different names (because they have different numbers) to be treated as the same file.
You can modify this behaviour to keep alphabetic characters, digits, and the underscore character by changing the parameters from ka to kn.
This change does mean that you also need to make sure that none of your file names begin with a number (as SAS datasets can't begin with a number).
The documentation for the compress function is here:
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000212246.htm
An easy way to debug this would be to take the dataset with all of the call symput statements, and in addition to storing these values in macro variables, write them to variables in the dataset. Also change it from a data _null_ to a data tmp statement. You can then see for each file what the destination table name will be.

Dynamically call macro from sas data step

This code executes fine when Run as a SAS program:
%MyMacro(foo_val, bar_val, bat_val);
I have created a table using:
DATA analyses;
input title : $32. weight : $32. response : $32.;
datalines;
foo1 bar1 bat1
foo2 bar2 bat2
;
I want to execute MyMacro once for each row of the analyses table.
The following code appears to only pass the string values title, weight and response (rather than the data values foo1 etc.) to my macro (tested with calls to the %put command) :
DATA _NULL_ ;
set analyses;
%MyMacro(title, weight, response);
RUN;
How can I invoke the macro once per record of the analyses table whilst passing data values as arguments to the macro? The intention is to actually run this for a very large number of analyses so the solution must scale appropriately to many more records in the analyses table.
This in part depends on what your macro is doing. If we assume that your macro is doing something that is intended to be run outside of a data step (ie, it's not just assigning a data step variable), then you have several options.
CALL EXECUTE
PROC SQL: SELECT INTO macro variable
Write macro calls into an %INCLUDE file
DOSUBL
CALL EXECUTE has already been explained, and is a good option for some cases. It has some downsides, however, particularly with macro timing, that requires some extra care to protect in some cases - particularly when you are creating macro variables inside your macro. Quentin in his comments shows a way to get around this (adding %NRSTR to the call), but I find that I prefer to only use CALL EXECUTE when there's an advantage to doing so over the other methods - particularly, if I want to use SAS data step techniques (such as FIRST or LAST, for example, or some form of looping) in creating my macro calls, or when I have to do things in a data step anyway and can avoid the overhead of reading the file another time. If I'm just writing a data step like yours above - data something, set something, call execute, run - I wouldn't use it.
PROC SQL SELECT INTO is typically what I use for list processing (which is largely what this is). I like SQL's simplicity a bit better when doing things that aren't too complicated; for example, you can get just one version of each macro call easily with DISTINCT without having to explicitly write a proc sort nodupkey or use first/last processing. It also has the advantage for debugging that you can write all of your macro calls to your results window (if you don't add noprint), which is a bit easier to read than the log for me if I'm trying to see why my calls didn't get generated properly (and doesn't take any extra PUT statements).
proc sql;
select catx(',','%macro(',arg1,arg2,arg3)||')'
into :mvarlist separated by ' '
from dataset;
quit;
&mvarlist.
That runs them quite simply, and has no timing issues (As you're just writing a bunch of macro calls out).
The main downside to this method is that you have a maximum of 64k characters in a macro variable, so if you're writing a huge number of these you'll run into that. In that case use CALL EXECUTE or %INCLUDE files.
%INCLUDE files are largely useful either as replacement for SELECT INTO when the call is over the character limit, or if you find it useful to have a text file to look at with your calls (if you're running this in batch mode for example, this could be easier to get to and/or parse than log or listing output). You just write your calls out to a file, and then %INCLUDE that file.
filename myfile temp; *or a real file if you want to look at it.;
data _null_;
set dataset;
file myfile;
length str $200;
str=catx(',','%macro(',arg1,arg2,arg3)||')';
put str;
run;
%include myfile;
I don't really use this much anymore, but it's a common technique used particularly by older SAS programmers so good to know.
DOSUBL is a relatively new method, and to some extent can be used to replace CALL EXECUTE as its default behavior is typically closer to what you expect intuitively than CALL EXECUTE's. The doc page has really the best example for how this works differently; basically, it fixes the timing issue by letting each separate call look import and export the macro variables from/to the calling environment, meaning that each iteration of DOSUBL is run at a distinct time versus CALL EXECUTE where everything is run in one bunch and the macro environment is 'fixed' (ie, any reference to a macro variable is fixed at run time, unless you escape it messily with %NRSTR).
One more thing worth mentioning is RUN_MACRO, a part of the FCMP language. That allows you to completely run a macro and import its contents back to the data step, which is an interesting option in some cases (for example, you could wrap a call around a PROC SQL that selected a count of something, and then import that to the dataset as a variable, all in one datastep). It's applicable if you're doing this for the purpose of calling a macro to assign a data step variable, not to run a process that does things that don't need to be imported into the data step, but it's something worth considering if you do want that data back all in the dataset that called the process.
You could use CALL EXECUTE:
data _null_;
set analyses;
call execute('%nrstr(%MyMacro('||title||','||weight||','||response||'))');
run;
You can put the variables values into macrovariables and then call your %MyMacro many times (the number of obs in your dataset) with the macrovariables as argument:
Data :
DATA analyses;
input title : $32. weight : $32. response : $32.;
datalines;
foo1 bar1 bat1
foo2 bar2 bat2
;
run;
Code to run macro :
data _NULL_;
set analyses end=fine;
call symput("ARGUMENT"||compress(_N_),catx(",",title,weight,response));
if fine then call symput("NLOOPS",compress(_N_));
run;
%*PUT &ARGUMENT1;
%*PUT &ARGUMENT2;
%MACRO MAIN;
%DO L=1 %TO &NLOOPS;
%MyMacro(&&ARGUMENT&L);
%END;
%MEND;
%MAIN;