Date:         Thu, 8 Mar 2012 13:17:19 +0000
Reply-To:     "Fehd, Ronald J. (CDC/OCOO/ITSO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Fehd, Ronald J. (CDC/OCOO/ITSO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Using IN operator in a macro XXXX
In-Reply-To:  <201203081149.q285eePZ021895@waikiki.cc.uga.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> From: KarlK
> Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 6:50 AM
> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Using IN operator in a macro XXXX
>
> I know that a macro "IN" construct was on the SAS ballot for a long time, and
> it's great, but I've been curious about one thing. (Disclaimer, I didn't search
> the archives to see if this issue has been discussed
> previously.) Any idea why we ended up with this complicated system of
> parens vs. no parens, MINOPERATOR option and MINDELIMETER option as
> opposed to their just implementing it as a "%IN" operator? Wouldn't %IN be
> more consistent with the rest of the macro language, e.g., %DO %WHILE, %IF
> %THEN %ELSE, etc.?
>
> Sorry if this is a dumb question.

nope, it is a Good Q.

Based on my now limited memory of the e-mail conversations
I had with several Little Birdies at the time of the the development
and release of the IN function in the macro language
there was Much Concern that many users had already developed
a macro named IN and that providing one would break their
already-running programs.

Art Carpenter will either affirm or deny a similar experience.

In artificial language development
there is Work-Around, Backward-Compatibility,
and Late-with-Great-Ideas.

My opinion is that the usage is indeed convoluted
but nobody found that their in-house macro named %IN
stopped working when SAS delivered this functionality to us.

Ron Fehd  macro OUT  maven