How to use call symput on a specific observation in SAS

Question

I'm trying to convert a SAS dataset column to a list of macro variables but am unsure of how indexing works in this language.

    DATA _Null_;
       do I = 1 to &num_or;
       set CondensedOverrides4 nobs = num_or;
       call symputx("Item" !! left(put(I,8.))
       ,"Rule", "G");
    end;
    run;

Right now this code creates a list of macro variables Item1,Item2,..ItemN etc. and assigns the entire column called "Rule" to each new variable. My goal is to put the first observation of "Rule" in Item1, the second observation in that column in Item2, etc.

I'm pretty new to SAS and understand you can't brute force logic in the same way as other languages but if there's a way to do this I would appreciate the guidance.

Answer 1

Much easier to create a series of macro variables using PROC SQL's INTO clause. You can save the number of items into a macro variable.

proc sql noprint;
  select rule into :Item1- 
  from CondensedOverrides4
  ;
%let num_or=&sqlobs;
quit;

If you want to use a data step there is no need for a DO loop. The data step iterates over the inputs automatically. Put the code to save the number of observations into a macro variable BEFORE the set statement in case the input dataset is empty.

data _null_;
  if eof then call symputx('num_or',_n_-1);
  set CondensedOverrides4 end=eof ;
  call symputx(cats('Item',_n_),rule,'g');
run;