Changing Dataset Names using SAS Macros

[camfarrell25]

I'm fairly new to this Macro things and I would like to have a dataset be named according to a parameter that is set using a "macro"-type paremeter -

DATA _NULL_;
%LET reportingdt = %str(June2016);
RUN;

proc import datafile="C:\Users\cafarrel\Desktop\\REPORTING_DATA.sav"
out=farrsas.reporting_&reportingdt dbms = sav replace;
run;

whenever I run this I get the following error message:

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

26 proc import datafile="C:\Users\cafarrel\Desktop\\REPORTING_DATA.sav"

27 out=farrsas.reporting_&reportingdt. dbms = sav replace;

NOTE: Line generated by the macro variable "REPORTINGDT".

27 farrsas.reporting_June2016

________

22

________

202

ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: ;, (, DATAFILE, DATATABLE, DBMS, DEBUG, FILE, OUT, REPLACE, TABLE,

_DEBUG_.

ERROR 202-322: The option or parameter is not recognized and will be ignored.

28 run;

What am i doing wrong? 😞

[ballardw]

Look closely at of proc import datafile="C:\Users\cafarrel\Desktop\\REPORTING_DATA.sav"

2 slashes in the file name, and since one looks different when I paste it, the second may not be the character it looked like below.

Not that it causes the error but this

DATA _NULL_;
%LET reportingdt = %str(June2016);
RUN;

Only needs to be:

%LET reportingdt = %str(June2016);

It will help to post log extracts with errors using the entry box brough up by the "run" icon to preserve formating so we can see

where the underlines are generated.

[Astounding · Accepted solution]

A likely culprit:  quoting functions such as %STR insert unseen quoting characters.  Usually SAS manages to remove them in time, but perhaps that is not happening here.  Try it this way:

%let reportingdt = Jun2016;

proc import .........; (no changes required)

[DocSteve]

try setting the macro variable (first three lines of your program) as follows:

%let <macro_variable_name> = <macro_variable_argument> ;

The datastep data _null_ is ok but irrelevant (%let can be used in open code).

The %str() function seems to be the problem: I ran it without that and the code worked.