Trying to print out the value for TODAY();

[Tater_Salad]

Hi!

Brand spanking new to SAS.

I'm trying the following:

%LET CURRENT_DAY=TODAY();

RUN;

.

.

.

%put 'Today is ' &CURRENT_DAY.;

.

.

quit;

AND I GET:

'Today is' TODAY()

What do I need to do to get the value of TODAY() ?

THX.

[jebjur · Accepted solution]

Try using %SYSFUNC like the following:

%LET CURRENT_DAY=%sysfunc(TODAY());

[Tater_Salad]

Awesome! Thank You!

[ballardw]

The question indicates perhaps you need to learn a bit more basic SAS coding before attempting the macro language. Macros are often not needed and your time would be better spent learning the basics.

Data _null_;

   currentdate = today();

   put  'Today is ' CURRENT_DAY;

run;

BUT this is likely not what you expect as the date is number of days and a format should be applied.

Data _null_;

   currentdate = today();

   put  'Today is ' CURRENT_DAY date9.;

run;

To use functions from the data step language you need to enclose the call within %sysfunc(today()) to tell the macro language to engage the data step function. Otherwise it only generates text.

Note that you may be able to use the automatic SAS variable &sysdate. Maybe. There are some details involved that you should read in the documentation.