topic Ampersand in file name, causing problems in SAS Programming

Ampersand in file name, causing problems

Anotherdream — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 22:19:10 GMT

I am trying to read in a file with an ampersand in it's name. Please see the code below for an example of what i'm trying to do (simplified the fields obviously).

data Notworking

infile "C:\Test this\Csv Files\&csvfile." dlm=',' lrecl=10 dsd;

length varnumcsv 3. name $1.;

input name $;

;

varnumCSV=_n_;

run;

The problem is the macro variable &Csvfile. is a macro that is defined as the name of a csv file within a directory, during this loop it resolves too.

%let csvfile=P&I ARREARAGE_brandonsfile.csv;

2028 %put &csvfile.;

WARNING: Macro variable "&I" was not resolved

P&I ARREARAGE_brandonsfile.csv

I would like to mask the & from WITHIN the macro variable, so that it doesnt' try to resolve the macro &I at run time (instead treats it JUST as a string). I am not sure how to do this. I know this is probably a simple solution so sorry for its simplicity.

Re: Ampersand in file name, causing problems

SASKiwi — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 23:35:30 GMT

Try this:

%let csvfile=%nrstr(P&I ARREARAGE_brandonsfile.csv);

Re: Ampersand in file name, causing problems

RW9 — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 09:02:10 GMT

Or pop single quotes around it:

%let csvfile='P&I ARREARAGE_brandonsfile.csv';

Re: Ampersand in file name, causing problems

Anotherdream — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 21:48:28 GMT

I was actually able to solve this using the "%superq(Macrovariablename)" trick.

I can't really put single quotes around the variable because the string is deffined WITHIN a macro variable, and therefore it is trying to resolve before the single quotes are defined. Thanks for the tips tho!