SAS Companion for the CMS Environment

Stored Compiled Macro Facility

The stored compiled macro facility gives you access to permanent SAS catalogs that contain compiled macros. The purpose of the stored compiled macro facility is to improve efficiency in the execution of production jobs. In order for SAS to use stored compiled macros, the SAS system option MSTORED must be in effect. In addition, you use the SAS system option SASMSTORE= to specify the libref of a SAS data library that contains a catalog of stored compiled SAS macros. For more information about these options, see System Options and SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.

Using stored compiled macros offers the following advantages over other methods of making macros available to your session:

SAS does not have to compile a macro definition when a macro call is made. Therefore, your program may be more efficient.
Session-compiled macros and the autocall facility are also available in the same session.

Because you cannot re-create the source statements from a compiled macro, you must save the original macro source statements.

Using the stored compiled macro facility is the most efficient way to make macros accessible to your SAS session. However, you can use these approaches:

place all macro definitions in the program before calling them
use a %INCLUDE statement to bring macro definitions in the program from external files
use the autocall facility to search predefined source libraries for macro definitions.

Accessing Stored Compiled Macros

The following example illustrates how to create a stored compiled macro in one session and then how to use the macro in a later session.

/* Create stored compiled macro */
libname mylib 'mylib a';
options mstored sasmstore=mylib;
%macro myfiles / store;
   filename file1 'first mylib a';
   filename file2 'second mylib a';
%mend;

/* Use stored compiled macro later */
libname mylib 'mylib a';
options mstored sasmstore=mylib;

%myfiles
data _null_;
   infile file1;
      ...statements reading input FILE1...
   file file2;
      ...statements writing output FILE2...
run;

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