topic Someone know why SAS do that? in SAS Programming

Someone know why SAS do that?

arodriguez — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:21:46 GMT

Hi everyone,

In a macro I concatenate multiple levels. Seems that one of thats levels have a "%", as a separator i use "#" character and I get differents outputs depending on if I put or not " ".

Here an example

%let var=Test;
%let array=%;
%put &array.#&var.;
%#Test#Test
%put &array.# &var.;
%# Test
%put &array. #&var.;
% #Test #Test

Someone know Why this odd performance? It seems a strange performance that is not presented when there is not the "%"

Thanks

Re: Someone know why SAS do that?

jklaverstijn — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:41:25 GMT

Hi @arodriguez,

Once you have come to gripsd with th emacro facility this behaviour will no longer seem strange. The % sign is what's called a type 3 macro trigger. It has special meaning for the macro facility and will throw things off if not properly stripped from that meaning.

Try coding

%let array=%nrbquote(%);

and your code will run a lot better. (edited from %nrstr(%%) to %nrbquote(%) which is even better)

For background I suggest you read up on macro quoting, an advanced subject indeed. But there are many good resources om the web.

Hope this helps,

- Jan.

Re: Someone know why SAS do that?

RW9 — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:52:06 GMT

The question really is why are you doing that, are you trying to make unreadable code?