topic Re: Masking "&&&&" in datastep in SAS Programming

Masking "&" in datastep

brokenpc1 — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:14:49 GMT

Hi All,

I am having a question regarding how to mask "&" in data steps:

Now I have a variable called "A&C name" in a table, when I call this variable using "A&C name"n, it returns an error showing that SAS interprets "&" as start of a macro var. I wonder how I can mask "&" here? I tried to search the discussions but didn't find a close match.

Thanks for your help!

Re: Masking "&" in datastep

PaigeMiller — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:19:51 GMT

Use single quotes, not double quotes. Or if for some reason double-quotes are mandatory (I can't think of a reason why it would be mandatory, but maybe...) use %nrstr(&)

Re: Masking "&&" in datastep

brokenpc1 — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:27:15 GMT

Hi @PaigeMiller , thanks for helping out. Single quote works for me. Feel like this is one of those rare cases double quote is not working in SAS.

Re: Masking "&&&&" in datastep

PaigeMiller — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:28:44 GMT

@brokenpc1 wrote:

Hi @PaigeMiller , thanks for helping out. Single quote works for me. Feel like this is one of those rare cases double quote is not working in SAS.

SAS is doing what it is supposed to be doing when you use double-quotes, but that doesn't seem to be what you want it to do.

Re: Masking "&&&&&&&&" in datastep

Tom — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:57:33 GMT

@PaigeMiller wrote:

@brokenpc1 wrote:

Hi @PaigeMiller , thanks for helping out. Single quote works for me. Feel like this is one of those rare cases double quote is not working in SAS.

SAS is doing what it is supposed to be doing when you use double-quotes, but that doesn't seem to be what you want it to do.

Did anyone else notice that each reply seems to be doubling the & in the subject line?

Replacement subject line

PaigeMiller — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:05:19 GMT

Yes, I see it. Calling @ChrisHemedinger