LS,

I'm probably being fooled here by a combination of SAS/CONNECT fine-print and macro processor behaviour. I can't seem to find out what goes awry in the following...

A simplified description of the situation: I have a number of fairly large data sets (1M+ obs), identically structured, with a number of analysis variables on each. Some of these data sets live on my PC (Win95), others on a UNIX box. I want to perform the same analyses on all data sets, therefore I wrap my code up in a macro, say, %testit.

In view of the size of the data sets, I would rather not up- or down-load any of them, so the problem I'm confronted with is how to get my %testit macro to submit some of its code in the local (pc) SAS-session, and some of its code remotely, while avoiding wallpaper programming.

An elegant way of doing this suggested itself in the form of two macro variables, &remoton and &remotoff. These would be set to blanks when code needs to be submitted locally, and to 'rsubmit', resp. 'endrsubmit', when code needs to be processed remotely. Sandwiching a data step as follows &remoton; data _foo; set _bar; ... run; &remotoff; would then either run locally (with both &remoton and &remotoff resolving to ' ') or remotely (with &remoton resolving to 'rsubmit' and &remotoff resolving to 'endrsubmit').

It does not work, there must be a flaw in either the idea or the design. Or both? Below is some sample code showing what I'm trying to achieve:

================================================================== LOG resulting from sample code ==================================================================

165 %* Whether a chunk of code needs to run locally or remotely *; 166 %* is determined by the value of &RUNWHERE, which can be *; 167 %* either PC (local) or UNIX (remote). *; 168 %macro testit(runwhere=); 169 170 %local remoton remotoff; 171 172 %* Set both to blank in the local SAS session. *; 173 %let remoton=; 174 %let remotoff=; 175 176 %* Set both to blank in the remote SAS session. *; 177 data _null_; 178 call symput('remoton',' '); 179 call symput('remotoff',' '); 180 run; 181 182 %if (&runwhere=UNIX) %then %do; 183 184 %* Change the values in the local SAS session. *; 185 %let remoton=rsubmit; 186 %let remotoff=endrsubmit; 187 188 %* Change the values in the remote SAS session. *; 189 rsubmit; 190 data _null_; 191 call symput('remoton','rsubmit;'); 192 call symput('remotoff','endrsubmit;'); 193 run; 194 endrsubmit; 195 196 %end; 197 198 %* Now try it... A data set WORK._EEK should appear in *; 199 %* either the remote or the local SAS session. *; 200 &remoton; 201 data _eek; 202 length xxx yyy $30.; 203 xxx="***&remoton***"; 204 yyy="***&remotoff***"; 205 run; 206 &remotoff; 207 208 %mend testit; 209 210 211 %testit(runwhere=UNIX);

NOTE: The DATA statement used 0.33 seconds.

NOTE: Remote submit to MYNODE commencing. 5709 data _null_; 5710 call symput('remoton','rsubmit;'); 5711 call symput('remotoff','endrsubmit;'); 5712 run;

NOTE: DATA statement used: real time 0.030 seconds cpu time 0.009 seconds

NOTE: Remote submit to MYNODE complete. NOTE: Remote submit to MYNODE commencing. 5713 data _eek; 5714 length xxx yyy $30.; 5715 xxx="***&remoton***"; 5716 yyy="***&remotoff***"; 5717 run;

NOTE: The data set WORK._EEK has 1 observations and 2 variables. NOTE: DATA statement used: real time 0.140 seconds cpu time 0.013 seconds

5718 &remotoff; NOTE: Line generated by the macro variable "REMOTOFF". 5718 endrsubmit; ---------- 180

ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.

5719 ; NOTE: Remote submit to MYNODE complete.

================================================================== END LOG ==================================================================

As can be seen in the above log, &remoton _does_ cause the remote submit to commence, but &remotoff somehow fails to end it properly. The WORK._EEK data set gets created in the remote SAS session.

Can anyone spot the blunder or shed any light on the problem?

Many thanks,

Koen Vyverman Fidelity Investments Luxembourg.