trying to extract a year value from today() using sysfunc

[robm]

I have a line like this

%LET YEARNOW= %unquote(%str(%'%sysfunc(year(today()), yyyy.)%'));

That throws an error like

ERROR: Required operator not found in expression: today()
ERROR: Argument 1 to function YEAR referenced by the %SYSFUNC or %QSYSFUNC macro function is not a number.
ERROR: Invalid arguments detected in %SYSCALL, %SYSFUNC, or %QSYSFUNC argument list. Execution of %SYSCALL statement or %SYSFUNC or %QSYSFUNC function reference is terminated.

What I am trying to do it get the year from a function so I copied this working one

%LET DATENOW= %unquote(%str(%'%sysfunc(today(), yymmdd10.)%'));

And tried to Dr it up

[Reeza]

You have two functions, Year() and today(). Each requires its own %SYSFUNC. 

%let year = %sysfunc(today(), year4.);

%let year = %sysfunc(year(%sysfunc(today()));

[collinelliot]

%let yearnow = %sysfunc(year(%sysfunc(today())));
%put &yearNow;

[Astounding]

I think you're overcomplicating this a bit.  Try it this way:

%LET YEARNOW= %unquote(%str(%'%sysfunc(today(), year4)%'));

%SYSFUNC lets you control the format of the value it returns.

[ballardw]

Every datastep function needs a separate %sysfunc.

Try

%let yearnow = %sysfunc(year(%sysfunc(today())));
%put &yearnow;

and

%let datenow = %sysfunc(putn(%sysfunc(today()),yymmdd10.));
%put &datenow;

Or move to a data step as much data manipulation in macro language becomes very ugly and sometimes fragile.

I find that the need to have something like %unquote(%str is an indication that I may want to rethink things.

[Astounding]

ballardw,

It's a question of what you want as the final result.  You will get:

2017

The added complications that I included will get:

'2017'

If you want quotes around the final value, you need to jump through the extra hoops.  But if you don't want the quotes, it becomes even simpler:

%let yearnow = %sysfunc(today(), year4);