Appending library into FMTSEARCH= option

FMTSEARCH= provides a convenient way for SAS to search for user defined formats at run time. The syntax is simple: just put the library names inside the parenthesis.

options FMTSEARCH=(yourlib)

Sometimes, user needs to append another directory to current search list. However, calling "options FMTSEARCH=" again will not make it happen - this will overwrite the old directory list with the new directory list.

If you are using SAS 9.1, what you can do is to get the current library list by using the GETOPTION function, storing the list in a macro variable and then append the new library list at the end of the macro variable. One trivial thing to note is that the GETOPTION returns the list with a pair of parenthesis. One way to get

rid of them is to use the COMPRESS function. The code follows:

%let _OLDLIB=%sysfunc(compress(%sysfunc(getoption(fmtsearch)), ")"));

options FMTSEARCH=&_OLDLIB, newlib);

In SAS 9.2, APPEND= option is introduced to the system options. For those lucky ones, simply use the following statement:

options APPEND=(FMTSEARCH=(newlib));

I am still waiting for my 9.2 to be installed. So, saving this new feature for later.

SAS macro string functions

SAS offers a rather short list of macro functions for string manipulation. Unlike regular SAS string functions (the ones used in a data set, without '%' in the front), these functions can be used directly in macro programming.

• %INDEX(source, string): Returns the position of the first character of a string.
• %SCAN(source, n, string, modifier): Search for the nth word in a string. Use modifier to add search options.
• %QSCAN: same as %SCAN but does not resolve special characters such as % and &.
• %SUBSTR(source, n, length): produce a substring of argument, beginning at position, for length number of characters.
• %QSUBSTR: same as %SUBSTR but does not resolve special characters such as % and &.
• %BQUOTE: Mark special characters ' " ( ) + - * / < > = ¬ ^ ~ ; , # blank AND OR NOT EQ NE LE LT GE GT IN
• %NRBQUOTE: same as %BQUOTE but in addition mark: & %.

The complete list of SAS macro functions can be found at: http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/mcrolref/61885/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a003167026.htm

With such short list of function, you may not always find the functions you want to use. What if you want to used a regular data step string function such as lowcase() or anydigit()? Well, you can always use %sysfunc() function to 'borrow' the data step functions into the macros.
The complete list of SAS string functions can be found at (PDF file):
http://support.sas.com/publishing/pubcat/chaps/59343.pdf