topic Re: Macro Variable clarification in SAS Programming

Macro Variable clarification

varunk — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 17:00:28 GMT

Hi Experts,

When i submitt the below statements it gets resolved to February.

%let %SYSFUNC(TODAY(), Monname.);

Resolves to February

However when i try to provide date value manually below statement gives error, Could you please let me know why it is giving error and how can it be resolved.

%Let D=%EVAL("24FEB2016"d);

%PUT %SYSFUNC(&D,Monname.);

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Varun

Re: Macro Variable clarification

Reeza — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 17:23:14 GMT

%sysfunc requires a function in the first parameter and an optional format for the second parameter.

You're not using a function for the first parameter. If you use PUTN then you don't need the second parameter.

This resolves as expected:

%Let D="24FEB2016"d;
%put %sysfunc(putn(&d, monname.));

Re: Macro Variable clarification

FreelanceReinh — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 22:01:45 GMT

Hi @varunk,

The first error message ("A character operand was found in the %EVAL function ...") is due to the fact that %EVAL cannot cope with date literals. To store the numeric SAS date value corresponding to the date literal in the macro variable, you can use the %SYSEVALF function:

%let d=%sysevalf("24FEB2016"d);
%put &d;
/* 20508 */

Reeza explained the second error message ("Function name missing in %SYSFUNC ...").

Re: Macro Variable clarification

varunk — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 19:53:12 GMT

Thanks for all your help

Re: Macro Variable clarification

varunk — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 19:54:34 GMT

thanks for all your help.