How to Mask a * in a macro call ?

[adleach2]

Dear Community ,

    I am working on a macro to do some OS commands for me.    I want to pass parameters to the macro that contain the character *.   

     However,  my code doesn't work  because SAS is recognizing * as the comment to end of line .   

    For example,  my macro call looks like 

  
 %_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/.    ) ;
 

  Of course the * in the first parameter causes SAS to ignore everything after that.   Is there is a way I can pass the * to the macro?

Thanks! 

[Krueger]

Reference the path in a %let statement and then plug that in.

%let path = "cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/.";

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = &path.);

[adleach2]

@Krueger   Thanks that will work as well. 

[Reeza]

Start with %STR() and move your way forward?

https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=mcrolref&docsetTarget=p0pwrvnlcooi3tn0z3g1755ebcng.htm&docse...

Summary of Special Characters and Macro Quoting Functions by Item

Group	Items	Macro Quoting Functions
A	+ — */<>=¬^|~;, # blank AND OR NOT EQ NE LE LT GE GT IN	all
B	&%	%NRSTR, %NRBQUOTE, %SUPERQ, %NRQUOTE
C	unmatched' “()	%BQUOTE, %NRBQUOTE, %SUPERQ, %STR*, %NRSTR*, %QUOTE*, %NRQUOTE*

By Function

Function		Affects Groups	Works At
%STR		A, C*	Macro compilation
%NRSTR		A, B, C*	Macro compilation
%BQUOTE		A, C	Macro execution
%NRBQUOTE		A, B, C	Macro execution
%SUPERQ		A, B, C	Macro execution (prevents resolution)
%QUOTE		A, C*	Macro execution. Requires unmatched quotation marks and parentheses to be marked with a percent sign (%).
%NRQUOTE		A, B, C*	Macro execution. Requires unmatched quotation marks and parentheses to be marked with a percent sign (%).
*Unmatched quotation marks and parentheses must be marked with a percent sign (%) when used with %STR, %NRSTR, %QUOTE, and %NRQUOTE.

[adleach2]

@Reeza  Thank you 

[Tom · Accepted solution]

The problem is not the * per se, but the combination of characters.  In particular your statement:

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/.    ) ;

Has the start of a block comment /* which you never end.

So either add regular quotes in the call, you will probably need to add them when you use that string anyway.

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = "cp /home/e931413/from/*.* /home/e931413/to/. "   ) ;

Or add macro quoting.  You could try to quote the full thing or just the part that make it look like a comment.

%_53_os_cmd ( oscmd = cp /home/e931413/from/%str(*).* /home/e931413/to/.    ) ;

[adleach2]

@Tom  Thanks for clarifying the issue.   This solutions works.