topic Re: Slightly OT Question for Chris in SAS Enterprise Guide

Slightly OT Question for Chris

frisco — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:09:08 GMT

Chris, I just read your blog entry on nerds and you mentioned that a hypothetical holiday greeting card might say %let peace='on Earth';
Of course, I can't help asking, why the quotes?

Re: Slightly OT Question for Chris

Doc_Duke — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:41:30 GMT

A nerd's holiday card must be syntactically correct. In SAS, text constants are enclosed in quotes.....

Re: Slightly OT Question for Chris

LinusH — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Syntactically, text constants assigned to a macro variable doesn't have to be enclosed in quotes. It's more a question of how you will use the macro variable later on...

/Linus

Re: Slightly OT Question for Chris

ChrisHemedinger — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:35:10 GMT

Actually, Cynthia Z suggested a true geek might write:

[pre]
options symbolgen;
%let what = peace;
%let where = &&&what;
%let how = And let it begin with me.;

%put Let there be &what &where.. &how;
[/pre]

Re: Slightly OT Question for Chris

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:18:49 GMT

Of, course, the code assumes that
[pre]
%let peace = on Earth;
[/pre]

has already been entered into the Global System Table with a %LET statement.

cynthia