How can I concatenate two variables in a Macro with an underscore between them

[pmdci]

Hi there,

Suppose I have the following macro

%MACRO MacroA(varA, varB);

I would like to create a new dataset that should be named varA_varB. For example, if varA is hello and varB is world, the datasource would be hello_world.

I tried &varA + "_" &varB in my macro code, but SAS doesn't like that. How can I achieve this?

Regards,

P.

[Linlin]

data class1 class2;

  set sashelp.class;

run;

%macro macroa(vara,varb);

data &vara._&varb;

  set &vara &varb;

  run;

%mend;

%macroa(class1,class2)

proc print data=&syslast;run;

[Tom · Accepted solution]

&vara._&varb

You do not need an operator to combine strings generated by macro code.  But you do need something to help the parser distinguish between whether you want the value of macro variable VARA or one named VARA_ .  So you need to add a period before the _.   Now if you really do need to have a period immediately after an expanded macro variable then you will have to type two as the first will be interpreted as ending the macro variable reference.