topic "call symput" for a string with " ' "? in SAS Programming

"call symput" for a string with " ' "?

Ken_oy — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:31:59 GMT

Hi, everyone,

I try to use "call symput" do the following step,

I want to do:

data test;

call symput("test_name", "Kid's First Test");

run;

%put &test1;

but I don't think in my code the "call symput" can deal with a string with a " ' ".

Any help? thanks.

Quentin — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:41:56 GMT

Hi,

Actually, CALL SYMPUT doesn't mind the unmatched single quote (since it is inside double quotes). But it cause problems for the %PUT statement.

If you wrote

%put Kid's First Test ;

That apostrophe would look to SAS like an unmatched single quote, and cause problems.

When &test_name resolves to that value, the single quote causes the same problems.

To avoid the problems, you mask the apostrophe by using macro quoting functions.

For example:

%put %bquote(&test_name) ;

%put %superq(test_name) ;

HTH,

--Q.

data_null__ — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:42:18 GMT

When the text is resolved you need to be sure that text does not cause errors. Typically that is done with quoting functions %SUPERQ %BQUOTE etc.