help with macro debugging

[janelange]

Hi,

I'm writing a macro that needs to use various different random seeds for different invocations of a subroutine, but I only want to enter one as an argument in the main macro.

I have some code, but I'm not sure if it's working.

Here's what the code looks like:

%macro test1(seed);

%macro test2;
%some_macro(&seed);
%let seed =%eval(&seed+2);
*update random seed to new value for use in next invocation of "test2";
%mend test2;

%test2;
%test2;

%mend test2;

%test1(111);
*this should run "some_macro" with 111 and 113 as seeds;

Is this the right way to do something like this, and if so, is there an output statement to make sure that the seed variable is changing when I want it to?

Thanks!
Jane

 

[ChrisW75]

Rather than using an algorithm to get your random seed, why not use the datetime?

data _null_;
  seed = datetime();
  call symput('SEED',seed);
run;

Datetime() returns the number of seconds since 01/01/1960. You can scale it down to a more manageable number by subracting from the figure.

To test your macro above, you want to use this:-

%put seed = &seed;

which will write out the value of seed.

I think you may have overcomplicated you macro above, you shouldn't need 2 nested macro loops (that's what I would call "ugly code").
You can set up do loops in macro code, so you'd probably be better with something more like this format:-

* set up the macro you want to run multiple times *;
%macro some_macro(var);
  %put &var;
%mend some_macro;


%macro runit();
  %let runs = 4;  * set number of times you want it run *;
  %let count = 0; * initialise counter *;
  %do %until (&count = &runs);
    %let count = %eval(&count + 1);
    %some_macro(&count);  * call macro... *;
  %end;
%mend runit;

%runit;

This is a simplistic example, and just writes out the passed value repeatedly. If you want specific seeds passed in (like your 111 and 113) this is the way to do it.
Enjoy.