Date:         Tue, 9 Mar 1999 16:51:28 +0100
Reply-To:     Frank Poppe <Frank.Poppe@SWOV.NL>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Frank Poppe <Frank.Poppe@SWOV.NL>
Organization: SWOV
Subject:      Re: Help with character to numeric conversion.
Comments: To: Stephen Dybas <skd02@HEALTH.STATE.NY.US>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hi,
 
If the only task  is to have an ASCII  file OUTFILE with the number of
records treated in Z6.0 format, just do it in the first datastep:
 
if last then do ;
file outfile ;
put _N_ z6.0 ;
end;
 
If, for some reason, you (also) want to have the value in a macro variable
you could use
 
if last then do ;
call symput  ( 'lstrec' , _N_ ) ;
end ;
 
This will give a warning, saying that numeric values have been converted to
character. This is the value _N_, converted to the macro character string.
You probably have been trying to do this explicitly, but using the wrong
function:     lastrec = input(_n_, $char6.);
 
I am not entirely sure what will happen, but it seems that while _N_ <1e6
LASTREC will be empty, and above that only the leftmost characters.
 
If you had inserted a %put &lstrec ; statement between steps you would have
seen the actual value.
 
If you have the right value in the macro variable, easy ways to use it in a
datastep are assigning it a value:
 
chrcount = &lstrec ;
 
or initializing it:
 
retain chrcount &lstrec ;
 
I hope this clarifies the use of macro variables a bit.
 
--
Frank Poppe
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Stephen Dybas schreef:
 
> To SAS-L:
>
> I hope someone can help.
>
> I need to be able to print the number of records I am transmitting on a
> trailer record.
>
> I've tried a number of different ways to get the macro variable 'lstrec'
> converted to a nummeric
> that can be formatted with the zw. format but it always seems to come up
> missing.
>
> Here is the stripped down code...
>
> data lastrecd;
> set datafile end=last;  /* Assume datafile is not empty */
>
> if last then do;
>      lastrec = input(_n_, $char6.);
>      call symput('lstrec', lastrec);
>     end;
>
> run;
>
> data trailer;
> chrcount = symget('lstrec');
> numcount = ???  /* Need to convert character variable 'chrcount' */
>                 /* to a numeric variable 'numcount' /*
> run;
>
> data _null_;
> file outfile;
> set trailer;
> put @1 numcount z6.; /* So that I can put the numeric value to an */
>                      /* output file in zw. format */
> run;
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.