topic Re: Call symput in SAS Programming

Call symput

HeatherNewton — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 03:30:29 GMT

Data _null_;
Job_date=today();
Format job_date date9.;
Run;

%let sampdate=&g_job_date;
Call symput(”g_job_date”, put(job_date, date9.));

It says call symput statement is used out of order and why?

Re: Call symput

ballardw — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 05:32:58 GMT

Call symput is expected to be in a data step. Your example has it after the end of the shown data step. Run statement ends a data step.

@HeatherNewton wrote:
Data _null_;
Job_date=today();
Format job_date date9.;
Run;

%let sampdate=&g_job_date;
Call symput(”g_job_date”, put(job_date, date9.));

It says call symput statement is used out of order and why?

Re: Call symput

Rick_SAS — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 19:16:40 GMT

Try this instead:

Data _null_;
Job_date=today();
Format job_date date9.;
Call symput("g_job_date", put(job_date, date9.));
Run;

%put &=g_job_date;

Re: Call symput

Quentin — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 19:22:38 GMT

As an alternative, you can use the macro language %SYSFUNC function to call TODAY() to get the date, without using a data step:

3    %let g_job_date=%sysfunc(today(),date9) ;
4    %put &=g_job_date ;
G_JOB_DATE=18JAN2023