# Why can't my macro see the values inside of the columns it's given?
**URL:** https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/why-cant-my-macro-see-the-values-inside-of-the-columns-its-given/8485
**Category:** Help
**Tags:** jinja, macros
**Created:** [May 30, 2023, 7:50pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/why-cant-my-macro-see-the-values-inside-of-the-columns-its-given/8485 "2023-05-30T19:50:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tano](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/tano)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2023, 7:50pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/why-cant-my-macro-see-the-values-inside-of-the-columns-its-given/8485/1 "2023-05-30T19:50:57Z")
Hi everyone! I am new with macro creation and I have an issue about it.
## Problem
I am triyng to send column values to the macro, and inside it I have a few **Ifs** conditions. But the validation is not carrying out, as the column name has not value (only receive a string as **x.name** )
## The context
My model has this column
```auto
{{ get_city('d.country') }} name
```
and inside the macro, for example, I have this condition:
```auto
{% macro get_city(coutry) -%}
...
{%- if country == 'text' -%}
'ans'
```
If the condition is equal to:
```auto
{%- if country == 'd.coutry' -%}
```
It returns **True**
## Extra Info
The engine is Big Query
Please excuse my redaction. Other kind of info that you need, let me know! Thks 🙌
---
### Author:  [@joellabes](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/joellabes)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2023, 4:15am UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/why-cant-my-macro-see-the-values-inside-of-the-columns-its-given/8485/2 "2023-06-02T04:15:45Z")
You should use Jinja to generate SQL, not to run transformations directly. You’ll have to work hard to go from a country name to a city name using Jinja, and that’s because it’s not a good practice.
How were you going to do this inside of your macro? If it was going to be a series of if statements, you can get your warehouse to do the work instead, e.g. by creating a seed file that contains the mappings and joining against that, or by creating a case statement.
If the case statement is going to be large and reused in multiple places, then you could leave that in a macro, but you should be thinking about macros as SQL generators where the work is ultimately still run against the warehouse.
---
### Author:  [@tano](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/tano)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2023, 7:17pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/why-cant-my-macro-see-the-values-inside-of-the-columns-its-given/8485/3 "2023-06-02T19:17:31Z")
Hi Joel!
Before all, Thanks a lot for your answer
I guees that it is correct if I share the total idea, and from here, maybe you could say me what is the best option in that case:
## Context
### First idea:
As I showed, my idea was share column value to the macro, and inside the macro return the final value depend on if the column value is equal to a string.
But it was not the “total” idea. Inside the macro there are a series of **if** statments (as you said) but a series of **arrays** too (variables).
_ **Why do I have this?** _
Because in each **if** statement, I verified if the column value is in array (_not equal to string_). And this was the problem that I showed (_not receive the column value_)
### Second idea:
Do not use macro, and have the same variables (the arrays inside a dict ) in the **.sql**. Avoiding the use of **if** statement, I implemented **case when statements** , but I can not looping on array and use this statement ( **case when** ) because the alias will be repeated.
ex.
```auto
{%- for region, cities in coutries.items() %}
{%- for city in cities %}
case when column_value = '{{city}}' then '{{region}}' end as 'alias'
{%- if not loop.last -%}, {%- endif-%}
{%- endfor -%}
{%- if not loop.last -%}, {%- endif-%}
{%- endfor -%}
```
### Conclusion
I do not want to share a “wall text”, but I hope that my ideas are clear. Let me know if something does not understood
From you answer, do you say that it could be a good idea work this logic inside the warehouse? 🤔
---
### Author:  [@joellabes](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/joellabes)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2023, 3:03am UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/why-cant-my-macro-see-the-values-inside-of-the-columns-its-given/8485/4 "2023-06-08T03:03:29Z")
If you have a dictionary of cities and regions, then I would do that using an `in` clause, something like this:
```auto
case
{%- for region, cities in coutries.items() %}
when column_value in ('{{ cities | join("', '") }}') then '{{region}}'
{%- endfor -%}
end as alias
```
However you might also like to make a seed (a csv file with the mappings) and join against that:
```auto
select
model.*,
region_lookup.region
from {{ ref('some_model') }} as model
left outer join {{ ref('region_lookup') }} as region_lookup on model.column_value = region_lookup.city
```
It seems to me that the bigger issue you’re going to have is that city names are not unique, and either of these approaches would cause issues when you have [two cities with the same name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_U.S._place_names).