The EXECUTE command executes the statements contained in the arguments by using the same facilities as a sequence of CALL PUSH, PAUSE, and RESUME statements. The statements use the same symbol environment as that of the subroutine that calls them. For example, consider the following subroutine:
proc iml;
start exectest;
/* IML STATEMENTS */
call execute ("xnum = {1 2 3, 4 5 6, 7 8 0};");
call execute ("create dsnum1 from xnum;");
call execute ("append from xnum;");
call execute ("print 'DSNUM should have 3 obs and 3 var:';");
call execute ("list all;");
/* global (options) statement */
call execute ("options linesize=68;");
call execute ("print 'Linesize should be 68';");
finish;
run exectest;
The following output generated from EXECTEST is exactly the same as if you had entered the statements one at a time:
DSNUM should have 3 obs and 3 var:
OBS COL1 COL2 COL3
------ --------- --------- ---------
1 1.0000 2.0000 3.0000
2 4.0000 5.0000 6.0000
3 7.0000 8.0000 0
Linesize should be 68
CALL EXECUTE could almost be programmed in IML as shown here; the difference between this and the built-in command is that the following subroutine would not necessarily have access to the same symbols as the calling environment:
start execute(command1,...);
call push(command1,...," resume;");
pause;
finish;