topic Re: numeric to char in SAS Programming

numeric to char

helloSAS — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 01:54:52 GMT

Hi,

I've below macro that is creating 201509 value as numeric. I need it as a character value. Please suggest.

data x;

call symput('currmon',put(intnx('MONTH',today(),0,'b'),yymmn6.));

cur=&currmon.;

run;

Re: numeric to char

Ksharp — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 02:24:00 GMT

In the same data step ?

cur=symgetn('currmon') ;

Re: numeric to char

SASKiwi — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 02:24:21 GMT

Your code is using a DATA step function to write to a macro variable then trying to write the macro variable back to a SAS variable.

Why not just do it directly?

data x;

cur = put(intnx('MONTH',today(),0,'b'),yymmn6.);

run;

Re: numeric to char

surajdvpatil — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 06:19:13 GMT

Only add the double quotes to your string

data x;

call symput('currmon',put(intnx('MONTH',today(),0,'b'),yymmn6.));

cur="&currmon.";

run;

Re: numeric to char

surajdvpatil — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 06:22:08 GMT

No Need to use intnx function

data x;
call symput('currmon',put(today(),yymmn6.));
cur="&currmon.";
run;

Re: numeric to char

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 07:09:07 GMT

Both of your tips won't work because the macro variable in the cur= assigment will be evaluated (during data step compilation) before it is set with the call symput (during data step execution)

Re: numeric to char

helloSAS — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 11:40:50 GMT

My bad guys, Thanks for your response. I'm not trying to write the value back to variable. I just did that to see if the macro variable is resolving as a numeric or character.

Re: numeric to char

helloSAS — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 11:49:53 GMT

I tried doing the same and it still gives me a numeric value of 201509.

Re: numeric to char

ChrisWard — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 17:07:16 GMT

All macro variables are stored as strings. What behavour (error message etc) are you seeing that makes it numeric.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/mcrolref/61885/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a002293823.htm

You can see from this log that if we try to store a numeric in a macro var it is converted to char by SAS.

1 data null;
2 call symput('currmonS',put(date(),yymmn6.));
3 call symput('currmonN',date());
4 run;
NOTE: Numeric values have been converted to character values at the places given by:
(Line) : (Column).
3:28

NOTE: The data set WORK.NULL has 1 observations and 0 variables.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
real time 0.01 seconds
cpu time 0.01 seconds