topic Re: data step versus %SYSFUNC in SAS Programming

data step versus %SYSFUNC

FK1 — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 09:06:20 GMT

Hello Everyone,

can someone explain why this works fine:

data worksfine;

starttime = time(); 
duration = 5;
stoptime = intnx('minute', starttime, duration, 'S');
stoptime2 = intnx('minute', time(), duration, 'S');

put _ALL_;

format starttime   stoptime: time8.;
run;

But this does not work:

/*Stop Time*/
%LET s_time = %sysfunc(intnx('minute',  %sysfunc(time()), 5, 'S'));
%PUT &s_time.;

Cheers,

Re: data step versus %SYSFUNC

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 09:09:11 GMT

Since the macro preprocessor is a pure text processor, quotes are not needed for string values:

%LET s_time = %sysfunc(intnx(minute,%sysfunc(time()),5,S),time8.);
%PUT &s_time.;

Re: data step versus %SYSFUNC

FK1 — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 09:10:21 GMT

Thank's Kurt for helping me out!