topic Re: Macro date not working? in SAS Programming

Macro date not working?

ybz12003 — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 16:28:05 GMT

Hello,

I would like to use the current date to generate an output file. However, I don't see the output date in my export file name. I continue getting a '&tdate.' in the end. Where did I do wrong? Thanks.

data _null_;
	call symput('tdate',put(year("&sysdate"d),4.)||'_'||put(month("&sysdate"d),z2.)||'_'||put(day("&sysdate"d),z2.));
run;

%put &tdate;

ods rtf file = 'Pathwat\AUD1619_RTY_Clinic_&tdate..rtf';

ods rtf close;

Re: Macro date not working?

AMSAS — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 17:16:23 GMT

Macros do not resolve within single quotes see Using Macro Variables

After a macro variable is created, you typically use the variable by referencing it with an ampersand preceding its name (&variable-name), which is called a macro variable reference. These references perform symbolic substitutions when they resolve to their value. You can use these references anywhere in a SAS program. To resolve a macro variable reference that occurs within a literal string, enclose the string in double quotation marks. Macro variable references that are enclosed in single quotation marks are not resolved. Compare the following statements that assign a value to macro variable DSN and use it in a TITLE statement:

Re: Macro date not working?

ErikLund_Jensen — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 17:15:01 GMT

Hi @ybz12003

It is not working because the rtf filename is in single quotes. Then the macro variable reference is treated as a constant.

Use double quotes instead.

Re: Macro date not working?

andreas_lds — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 11:59:21 GMT

You can simplify the creation of the date variable by using put with format yymmddn8:

30         data _null_;
31            call symputx('tdate', put("&sysdate."d, yymmddn8.));
32         run;
33         
34         %put &=tdate;
TDATE=20220913

Re: Macro date not working?

PaigeMiller — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:46:35 GMT

Great point from @andreas_lds . To @ybz12003 you should never need to pull apart text strings to work with SAS dates; there are plenty of built-in functions/formats/informats that you can use to avoid the need to pull apart text strings. SAS has done the hard work regarding handling dates, so you don't have to.