Richard, I wrote a macro like that once, it went something like this: %macro varlist(data,keep=,drop=); %local dsid dskeep dsdrop i rc name; %let dsid=%sysfunc(open(&data)); %let dskeep=%sysfunc(open(&data(keep=&keep))); %let dsdrop=%sysfunc(open(&data(drop=&drop))); %do i=1 %to %sysfunc(attrn(&dsid,nvars)); %let name=%sysfunc(varname(&dsid,&i)); %if %sysfunc(varnum(&dskeep,&name)) and %sysfunc(varnum(&dsdrop,&name)) %then %do; &name%end; %end; %let rc=%sysfunc(close(&dsid)); %let rc=%sysfunc(close(&dskeep)); %let rc=%sysfunc(close(&dsdrop)); %mend;

The original macro also contained some checks to see if the data set name and the variable lists were valid, and an advanced option where=, that could be used to subset dictionary.columns, e.g. where=name like '%num'.

The macro as is returns the intersection of the keep and drop variable lists if both are specified.

Your macro can then be written as

%macro ExpandVarlist(data=, varlist=); %if %length(&varlist) %then %do;%varlist(&data,keep=&varlist)%end; %mend;

Feel free to use whatever parts of the code that you like.

Regards, Søren

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:18:01 -0400, Richard DeVenezia <rdevenezia@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>I'm trying to write a macro that will return the variables that match >a variable list. > >---------- >%macro ExpandVarlist(data=, varlist=); > %local dsid index; > %let dsid = %sysfunc(open(&data(keep=&varlist))); > %if &dsid %then %do; > >%put %sysfunc(attrn(&dsid,nvars)); > > %do index = 1 %to %sysfunc(attrn(&dsid,nvars)); >%sysfunc(varname(&dsid,&index)) > %put debug-> &index.. %sysfunc(varname(&dsid,&index)) ; > %end; > %let dsid = %sysfunc(close(&dsid)); > %end; > >%mend; > >data foo; > length a b c d e f g h i j k l m n $1; >run; > >%put %ExpandVarList(data=foo, varlist=d--f l--n); >---------- > >which bumps up against this issue http://support.sas.com/kb/1/666.html >"DATA Step OPEN function honors the KEEP or DROP functions ...The >VARNAME function is expecting the second parameter to be the position >in the original dataset." > >Anyone have a work around or ideas ? >Do not want to pollute the log with "WARNING: Argument 2 to function >VARNAME referenced by the %SYSFUNC or %QSYSFUNC macro function is out >of range." > >TIA, >Richard A. DeVenezia