%LET help

[jeffbezos]

Hi, I've assigned two values using %let and wish to use them to select the column 201809 from my table rather than create the value '201809' in my proc sql statement.  Here's the code i have so far: 

%let billyr = 2018;
%let billmth = 09;

proc sql;

create table test as select prod_cd, &billyr.&billmth. from sometable;

quit;

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff!

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
In SAS tables, a column name has to start with a letter or underscore. You cannot have a variable named '201809' if "sometable" is a SAS dataset. Can you show the PROC CONTENTS for WORK.SOMETABLE which shows the EXACT column name that you are trying to build with macro variables?

Cynthia

[jeffbezos]

Thank you, modified my code to add a character in front of the variable helped fix it.  noob move.

---

@Cynthia_sas wrote:
Hi:
In SAS tables, a column name has to start with a letter or underscore. You cannot have a variable named '201809' if "sometable" is a SAS dataset. Can you show the PROC CONTENTS for WORK.SOMETABLE which shows the EXACT column name that you are trying to build with macro variables?

Cynthia

---

[Tom]

If you somehow managed to create a variable name that starts with a number then you need use a name literal to reference it.

%let billyr = 2018;
%let billmth = 09;

proc sql;
create table test as
 select prod_cd, "&billyr.&billmth."n as usable_varname
 from sometable
;
quit;

You also need to make sure that VALIDVARNAME option is set to ANY.