How do you assign the result of a macro function to a macro variable in SAS?

Question

I have a macro that creates a timestamp (to append to output file names). However, rather than have to remember what macro variable the macro assigns the value to, I would prefer to assign a macro variable to the result of the macro (if that isn't circular enough).

%let tms= %tms();

This is the current macro....

%macro tms ;
    %* Create a Timestamp ;
 %let tms_date= %sysfunc(date(),yymmdd10.) ;  %* Todays date ;
 %let tms_time= %sysfunc(time(),time.) ;      %* Current Time ;

 %* Format mmddyyhhmmss ;
 %let tms=_%scan(&tms_date,1)%scan(&tms_date,2)%scan(&tms_date,3)%scan(&tms_time,1,:)%scan(&tms_time,2,:)%scan(&tms_time,3,:) ;

%mend ;

How do you quote this to make it work? Also, would I just remove the "%let tms=" from the macro?

Also, would the same quoting work for the following ODS assignment statement?

ods Tagsets.excelxp file="&outname.&tms..xml" style= Styles.XLsansPrinter ;

Thanks for taking the time....

Answer 1

A macro with a return value is usually called a macro function. Before the mend statment, if you put an expression/value without a semicolon, it will return the value to the caller. If the return value is in an if-else block, the ; would be necessary.

Basically, you can do as you suggest and remove the %let tms= from inside the macro. And yes, I do believe it would work with the ods assignment statment.

%macro tms ;
    %* Create a Timestamp ;
 %let tms_date= %sysfunc(date(),yymmdd10.) ;  %* Todays date ;
 %let tms_time= %sysfunc(time(),time.) ;      %* Current Time ;

        %* Format mmddyyhhmmss ;
 _%scan(&tms_date,1)%scan(&tms_date,2)%scan(&tms_date,3)%scan(&tms_time,1,:)%scan(&tms_time,2,:)%scan(&tms_time,3,:) 
%mend;
%let tms=%tms;
%put **&tms**;

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As another suggestion, you can simplify the code somewhat by using the compress function insead of the %scan functions like this

%sysfunc(compress(_&tms_date.&tms_time,"-:"));