Date:         Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:15:29 -0500
Reply-To:     "Dasappan, Michael" <Michael_Dasappan@MEDCOHEALTH.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Dasappan, Michael" <Michael_Dasappan@MEDCOHEALTH.COM>
Subject:      Re: Multiple %if statements
Comments: To: "Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO)" <rjf2@cdc.gov>
Content-Type: text/plain

Ron,
My code works, I am looking for help on stringing multiple %if.
Thanks

-----Original Message-----
From: Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO) [mailto:rjf2@cdc.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 3:09 PM
To: ___ SAS-L
Cc: Michael Dasappan
Subject: RE: Multiple %if statements


> From: Michael Dasappan [mailto:Michael_Dasappan@MEDCOHEALTH.COM]
> I have code that evaluates multiple criteria and I use %if
> statements like this
>
> %if (&groupid NE '' and &contractid NE '' and &carrid NE '')
> %then %do;

maybe you -think- you do
but the correct syntax for testing whether a macro variable is blank is
%if &groupid    NE
and &contractid NE
and &carrid     NE
%then %do;

note-1: parens unnecessary for a group of ands
note-2: mVars are not SAS character vars
        they are always character strings
        in this case the string is <null>
        meaning no need for quotes
if you want to mnemonically show you are testing for null string: %if
"&groupid." NE "" which means the value of GroupId is a string of length
zero

> ....code here
>
> Question is if I have multiple %if that execute the same
> code, is there a way to string them together, something like
>
> %if (&groupid NE '' and &contractid NE '' and &carrid NE '') %else if;
> %if (&groupid NE '' and &contractid = '' and &carrid NE '') %else if;
> %if (&groupid NE '' and &contractid NE '' and &carrid = '') %then %do;

> ...code here

uh, how about a test senario?
the above sets of %if statements are mutually exclusive

Ron Fehd  the macro maven  CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2@cdc.gov

By using your intelligence
you can sometimes make your problems twice as complicated.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
... not to mention that it won't work

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