Date:         Fri, 3 Oct 2008 07:54:46 -0700
Reply-To:     RolandRB <rolandberry@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         RolandRB <rolandberry@HOTMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: a proposed framework for macro validation
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Oct 3, 3:05 pm, "Lou" <lpog...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "RolandRB" <rolandbe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:7367742a-7f44-45dc-a96e-a401108d5a5e@j68g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> > I'll have a special macro containing the above macros plus a
> > declaration of the global macro parameters so that it gets called at
> > job start and compiles the macros. These macros are for macro testing
> > purposes only and will never be used for anything else.
>
> Does anyone else see an infinite regression gathering steam here?  If there
> are macros to validate macros, how do we know that the validation macros are
> valid?  Somewhere this process has to bottom out.

The validation macros themselves are aimed to be very simple and not
used for anything else. In fact I desingned them to be useless outside
their own construct. For example, nobody in their right mind would use
a sas method to compare two flat files.