SAS Certified Professional Prep Guide

Conditional Processing

The %IF-%THEN Statement and %ELSE Statement

A Brief Overview

You can perform conditional execution at the macro level with %IF-%THEN and %ELSE statements.

Although they look similar, the %IF-%THEN/%ELSE statement and the IF-THEN/ELSE statement belong to two different languages. Most of the same rules that apply to the DATA step IF-THEN/ELSE statement also apply to the %IF-%THEN/%ELSE statement. However, there are several important differences between the macro %IF-%THEN statement and the DATA step IF-THEN statement.

%IF-%THEN Rules	IF-THEN Rules
Can be used both inside or outside a macro program.	Is used only in a DATA step program.
Executes during macro execution.	Executes during DATA step execution. ...