topic Re: How to Mask a * in a macro call ? in SAS Programming

How to Mask a * in a macro call ?

adleach2 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:18:40 GMT

Dear Community ,

I am working on a macro to do some OS commands for me. I want to pass parameters to the macro that contain the character *.

However, my code doesn't work because SAS is recognizing * as the comment to end of line .

For example, my macro call looks like

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/. ) ;

Of course the * in the first parameter causes SAS to ignore everything after that. Is there is a way I can pass the * to the macro?

Thanks!

Krueger — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:25:49 GMT

Reference the path in a %let statement and then plug that in.

%let path = "cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/.";

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = &path.);

Reeza — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:31:50 GMT

Start with %STR() and move your way forward?

Summary of Special Characters and Macro Quoting Functions by Item
Group	Items	Macro Quoting Functions
A	+ — */<>=¬^\|~;, # blank AND OR NOT EQ NE LE LT GE GT IN	all
B	&%	%NRSTR, %NRBQUOTE, %SUPERQ, %NRQUOTE
C	unmatched' “()	%BQUOTE, %NRBQUOTE, %SUPERQ, %STR, %NRSTR, %QUOTE, %NRQUOTE

By Function
Function	Affects Groups	Works At
%STR	A, C*	Macro compilation
%NRSTR	A, B, C*	Macro compilation
%BQUOTE	A, C	Macro execution
%NRBQUOTE	A, B, C	Macro execution
%SUPERQ	A, B, C	Macro execution (prevents resolution)
%QUOTE	A, C*	Macro execution. Requires unmatched quotation marks and parentheses to be marked with a percent sign (%).
%NRQUOTE	A, B, C*	Macro execution. Requires unmatched quotation marks and parentheses to be marked with a percent sign (%).
*Unmatched quotation marks and parentheses must be marked with a percent sign (%) when used with %STR, %NRSTR, %QUOTE, and %NRQUOTE.

Tom — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:38:20 GMT

The problem is not the * per se, but the combination of characters. In particular your statement:

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/.    ) ;

Has the start of a block comment /* which you never end.

So either add regular quotes in the call, you will probably need to add them when you use that string anyway.

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = "cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/. "   ) ;

Or add macro quoting. You could try to quote the full thing or just the part that make it look like a comment.

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = cp /home/e931413/from/%str(*).* /home/e931413/to/.    ) ;

adleach2 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:36:41 GMT

@Krueger Thanks that will work as well.

adleach2 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:37:05 GMT

@Reeza Thank you

adleach2 — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:37:53 GMT

@Tom Thanks for clarifying the issue. This solutions works.