MINDELIMITER= System Option

Specifies the character to be used as the delimiter for the macro IN operator.

Valid in:	Configuration fileOPTIONS windowOPTIONS statementSAS invocation
PROC OPTIONS GROUP=	MACRO
Type:	System option
Default:	a blank
See:	MINOPERATOR System Option and %MACRO Statement

Syntax

Details

Comparisons

Syntax

MINDELIMITER=<”option”>

Required Argument

option

is a character enclosed in double or single quotation marks. The character will be used as the delimiter for the macro IN operator. Here is an example:double quotation marks

mindelimiter=”,”;

or single quotation marks

mindelimiter=',';

Details

The option value is retained in original case and can have a maximum length of one character. The default value of the MINDELIMITER option is a blank.

You can use the # character instead of IN.

Note: When the IN or # operator is used in a macro, the delimiter that is used at the execution time of the macro is the value of the MINDELIMITER option at the time of the compilation of the macro. A specific delimiter value for use during the execution of the macro other than the current value of the MINDELIMITER system option might be specified on the macro definition statement:

%macro macroname / mindelimiter=',';

Comparisons

The following is an example using a specified delimiter in an IN operator:

%put %eval(a in d,e,f,a,b,c); /* should print 0 */
%put %eval(a in d e f a b c); /* should print 1 */
option mindelimiter=',';
%put %eval(a in d,e,f,a,b,c); /* should print 1 */
%put %eval(a in d e f a b c); /* should print 0 */

The following is the output to the SAS log:

NOTE: Copyright (c) 2007–2008 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.
NOTE: SAS (r) Proprietary Software Version 9.2 (TS A0)
      Licensed to SAS Institute Inc., Site 0000000001.
NOTE: This session is executing on the WIN_NT  platform.
NOTE: SAS initialization used:
      real time           1.02 seconds
      cpu time            0.63 seconds
  %put %eval(a in d,e,f,a,b,c); /* should print 0 */
0
  %put %eval(a in d e f a b c); /* should print 1 */
1
  option mindelimiter=',';
  %put %eval(a in d,e,f,a,b,c); /* should print 1 */
1
  %put %eval(a in d e f a b c); /* should print 0 */
0