SAS Macro Utilities

Collection of utility SAS macros for data management and utility purposes.

Table of Contents

• Project Directory Structure
• Installation
• Usage
• Standards
  • File Properties
  • Header Properties
  • Coding Standards
• General Notes
• Author Contact

Project Directory Structure

ucmacros:

• Uncompiled SAS macro source
• OS agnostic

Installation

Clone or download the repository to a location your SAS session can access. Update sasautos option to include the ucmacros directory. This can be done within a SAS program directly or within a SAS autoexec process.

For example:

options append=(sasautos="/your/path/sas-macro-util/ucmacros");

Usage

After sasautos is updated with the source ucmacros directory, call the desired SAS macro using standard SAS macro programming along with desired parameters. Check the header contained within each source file.

For example:

%dbug(level=2,log=/tmp/test.log);

Standards

File Properties

• filenames much match macro names
• filenames must be lowercase using underscores
• macro names must be lowercase
• one macro per file
• unix style line endings (LF)
• UTF-8

Header Properties

• Purpose: very short description of the purpose and goal of the macro.
• Parameters: short description of each parameter itemized in a list.

Additional properties such as last modified timestamps, authorship and revision history are maintained within the git repository.

Coding Standards

• Indentation = 2 spaces with no tabs.
• Macro variables should not have the trailing dot (&var not &var.) unless necessary to prevent incorrect resolution. For example, dataset references within macros may use a trailing dot.
• Closing %mend; contains the macro name.
• All parameters are keyword style. Default values can be defined within each macro.

General Notes

• Macros were built starting from SAS version 9.2. All macros should be compatible with SAS versions 9.2 and later.

Author Contact

• Steve Overton