CODEWITHSUNDEEP
stringsassas-macro
Rookatu
Rookatu

Reputation: 1507

Inconsistent behaviour concatenating macro variables

I am trying to create a string by concatenating several variables/delimiters within a macro:

%macro write_to_string();
%let delim = = ;
%let string = %sysfunc(catx(%str( ), 
                             &string, \,
                             step start,
                             %nrstr(%superq(delim)),
                             &etls_stepStartTime,
                             |,
                             output table,
                             %nrstr(%superq(delim)),
                             &SYSLAST, 
                             |,
                             transform return code,
                             %nrstr(%superq(delim)),
                             &trans_rc));
%mend;

The macro is called at the end of several transformations (within SAS DI), so the string keeps having text appended at the end.

If the each instance of %nrstr(%superq(delim)) is replaced with some other delimiter, : say, then the above macro behaves as intended. But with the code as above what I get a 0 followed by the last string to have been appended.

I am quite ignorant about macro variables and functions and am struggling to understand

Any help is greatly appreciated!

EDIT

The input variables in the code above are autogenerated by the SAS DI system and reset after each transformation in the job. The values look something like

&etls_stepStartTime = 16FEB2017:17:25:37

&SYSLAST = WORK.MY_TABLE_NAME

&trans_rc = 0

Here the value of &trans_rc will indicate the error/warning status of the last transformation that ran.

So my desired output (with the &delim variable working) would be values of the form

step start = 16FEB2017:17:25:37 | output table = WORK.MY_TABLE_NAME | transform return code = 0

delimited by \. As mentioned above, what I get is only the last value (the one corresponding to the last transformation) with a preceding 0\, unless I change the delimiter to some non-reserved character constant.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 46

Answers (1)

Tom
Tom

Reputation: 51566

Don't use %SYSFUNC() with the CAT... series of functions. First of all you don't need them as in macro code you can just place the text where you want it. Second since those functions can work on either numeric or character arguments. This means that SAS has to try to figure out whether the text that your macro code is generating as the arguments represent a number or a character string. That is probably why the equal signs result in zeros. SAS is treating the equal sign as equality test so the zero means that the values on each side are not equal.

%let string =&string \ step start &delim &etls_stepStartTime ;
%let string =&string | output table &delim &SYSLAST ;
%let string =&string | transform return code &delim &trans_rc ;

Upvotes: 1

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