Create data set from macro variable SAS

Question

I have a macro variable which stores a string of names, for example:

%let operation = add subtract divide multiply;

I wanted to transpose each element (to appear as observation) in the macro into a data set variable. So the data set should look like:

<obs> <operation>
<1>   add
<2>   subtract
<3>   divide
<4>   multiply

Answer 1

Use the SCAN() function. The default delimiters will work for your example, otherwise you can specify the exact delimiters to use.

%let operation= add subtract divide multiply;
data want ;
  length obs 8 operation $20 ;
  do obs=1 by 1 until (operation=' ');
    operation=scan("&operation",obs);
    if operation ne ' ' then output;
  end;
run;