The SAS way to loop over a table outside a data step

I am wondering what is the cleanest way how to perform a macro loop over a data table outside a data step in order to e.g. read in files from the table have and do some complex analysis for each of the files.

Assume we have a table have containing a set of file names and other meta data:

N  filename  purpose
1  foo.xls   Blue team data
2  bar.xls   Read team data

I was thinking of something like

%local lines current_file current_purpose;

proc sql noprint;
   select count(*) into: lines from have;
quit;

%do I=1 %to &lines.;
   %put --- Process file number &I. ---;
   data _null_;
      set have;
      if _n_=&I. then do;
        call symput('current_file',filename);
        call symput('current_purpose',purpose);
      end;
   run;
   %put --- &current_file. contains &purpose.;
   /* Here comes the actual analysis */ 
%end;

Is this the way how to do it? For me, this does not look like the simplest way.

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