Want to Learn SAS Macro Language? My Videos Will Help You Get Started!

*This post contains links to educational resources for which I earn royalties if you actually purchase them.

I was reviewing trends in Google searches for SAS, and I found that a lot of people were looking for information on SAS macros. Therefore, I thought I’d make a few videos to help learners who are beginning to work with SAS macros.

SAS created a new online platform that is free to use called SAS OnDemand for Academics. It’s great for practicing your code! If you want help getting started using the platform, take my free course called “Getting Started with SAS ODA”.

In the videos below, I demonstrate code from my book, “Mastering SAS Programming for Data Warehousing”. In these videos, I demonstrate code from Chapter 8, where I talk about automating warehouse extract-transform-load (ETL) code with SAS macros.

What are SAS “Macros” and “Macro Variables”?

Macro variables in SAS are actually different than macros, but they tend to be incorporated in macro programming.

• A “macro variable” refers to a variable you can define and set to a value, and then change the value as you like while still being able to refer to that variable.
• A “macro” is a snippet of code in SAS that you can set up to run automatically.

Actually, you can use a macro variable outside of a macro. So usually, the first thing you learn when approaching macro programming is how to make a simple macro variable outside of a macro, which is part of the steps to building a macro. Then, later, you learn how to build the macro, and then you learn how to combine using macro variables with macros together.

Four Steps to Making a Macro that Uses Macro Variables

Step 1. Make Base Code That Runs

This video shows me making some simple base code that does a data step and runs a frequency using PROC FREQ. The PROC FREQ has a WHERE criterion in it which could be changed each time it ran through using a macro variable.

Step 2: Add Macro Variables

In the next step of making a macro out of SAS code you already wrote, you have to choose what parts of the code you want to parameterize, and you turn those into macro variables. In this case, I parameterize the criterion on the WHERE clause in the PROC FREQ. I show a demonstration in this video.

Step 3. Make it Into a Macro with No Parameter Inputs

Now that we have our base code running well, and we figured out what macro variables we need, we can turn our base code into a macro. This video shows me converting the base code from Step 1 into a macro, and then launching the macro. But at this point, we still don’t take any parameter inputs through macro variables – we’ll add that in the next step.

Step 4: Parameterize the Macro with Macro Variables

Finally, in this video, we parameterize parts of the macro by adding macro variables (as we had imagined doing in Step 2). Now, the value of our macro variable needs to be declared whenever the macro is launched, or it won’t run. This allows us to reset the value of this variable each time we run the macro.

SAS Macros: The Big Picture

If you watch all the videos, you might begin to see through my simple examples how powerful SAS macro language can be for automation. I show just two functionalities – macros and macro variables. If you add the functionality of SAS arrays to the picture – which I cover in Chapter 6 of my SAS book – they can be made even more automated.

But the trick to any of this automation is to do it in baby steps, where you just change one little thing each step, and make sure the macro still works. This is why I emphasize that you only want to get into building macros in SAS if you really need to automate something, because the process of building them (as well as editing and troubleshooting them) is very time-consuming. However, if the gain in efficiency in automation is definitely there (as it is in data warehousing), I say – GO FOR IT!

Want to learn how to do research projects with SAS? Take Monika’s SAS courses on LinkedIn Learning.