SAS® Macro Language 2: Advanced Techniques Training

Before attending this course, you should have completed the SAS Macro Language 1: Essentials course or have equivalent knowledge and experience. Specifically, you should be able to

• write macro programs that contain iterative processing and conditional processing
• create local and global macro variables
• create macro variables using the SYMPUTX routine
• use indirect macro variable references
• use the SQL procedure SELECT statement INTO clause.

This course addresses Base SAS software.

Who should attend

• Experienced SAS macro programmers who want to learn advanced techniques

• create hierarchical, menu-driven macro applications
• exploit stored, compiled, and autocall macro facilities
• exploit macro quoting functions
• generate data-driven macro calls
• perform table lookup operations
• apply SAS or user-defined formats to macro variables
• automatically convert data set variables to macro variables
• search for all CSV, Excel, or Microsoft Access files in a directory and all subdirectories and automatically import each file, worksheet, or table into a SAS data set
• search for all SAS programs in a directory and all subdirectories and automatically submit every program
• exploit SAS I/O and external file functions
• create your own macro functions
• create macro functions that return the number of observations in a data set or a subset of a data set
• create a macro function that validates whether a selected variable exists in a selected data set and returns the variable's type
• create custom windows and menus that interactively gather and validate user-supplied parameter values

Introduction

• course logistics

Macro Storage

• stored compiled macro facility
• autocall macro facility

Protecting Special Characters

• protecting constant text
• protecting resolved values

Reading SAS Data

• data-driven macro calls
• SAS I/O functions

Reading External Data

• importing CSV files
• importing Microsoft Excel files

Table Lookup Techniques

• macro variables
• formats

Validating User Input

• macro parameters
• macro windows