How to remove the quotes from a horizontal list of values of a macro variable in SAS?

[pkm_edu]

https://communities.sas.com/t5/ODS-and-Base-Reporting/Remove-quotes-from-macro-variable-LET/m-p/2288...

Using the code from the above link, I was trying to remove the quotes from the values of the macro variable &varlist below.

%let varlist ="CVDLAYCA31" "CVDLAYCA42" "CVDLAYCA53" "CVDLAYDN31" "CVDLAYDN42" "CVDLAYDN53" "CVDLAYPM31" "CVDLAYPM42" "CVDLAYPM53"
"CVVACCINE42" "CVVACCINE53" "BOOSTERSHOT53";

%put %qsysfunc(dequote(&varlist));

Got output in the SAS Log: CVDLAYCA31

Desired output: CVDLAYCA31 CVDLAYCA42 CVDLAYCA53 CVDLAYDN31 CVDLAYDN42 CVDLAYDN53 CVDLAYPM31 CVDLAYPM42 CVDLAYPM53 CVVACCINE42 CVVACCINE53 BOOSTERSHOT53

Issue:  I get only one value with the quotes from the list, not the remining values.

What changes would I make to the code %put %qsysfunc(dequote(&varlist)); to get the desired output?

Thanks.

[Tom · Accepted solution]

That is not what the DEQUOTE() function does.  To use that function you would have to first pull out each quoted sub-string.

If you juts want to remove a character (or a list of characters) use the COMPRESS() function.

%put %qsysfunc(compress(&varlist,%str(%")));

If the list might have some of them quoted with single quotes then remove both in one call.

%put %qsysfunc(compress(&varlist,'"')));

[pkm_edu]

I deleted the last parenthesis from your code as follows.

%put %qsysfunc(compress(&varlist,'"'));

The code has worked.

Thanks,