Date:         Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:26:59 -0500
Reply-To:     "Fehd, Ronald J. (CDC/CCHIS/NCPHI)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Fehd, Ronald J. (CDC/CCHIS/NCPHI)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Subject:      Re: question about "original purpose" of macros
In-Reply-To:  <4e36d9d2-a600-4d57-8e8f-662ec1e079de@33g2000vbe.googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Jan 14, 5:09 pm, jclguy
> Somewhere along the line, I remember someone telling me that the
> original(intended) purpose of sas macros was to provide (advanced or
> sophisticated) sas code to end users. Hopefully this was not
> apocryphal.

the two strengths of the macro language are

* %if: conditional execution of tokens, whether less than or more than a
statement

* %do: repetition: loops

depending on your operating system
and therefore the strength of your text editor
you can generate a lot of repetitive text w/out using macros.

sas macro language supports writing code as small as functions
and as large as multi-step programs.

this can also be reframed as:

sas macro language supports writing code as small as subroutines
and as large as modules

Ron Fehd  the macro maven  CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2 at cdc dot gov
Ron Fehd  the module/routine/subroutine maven  CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2
at cdc dot gov