If condition with date macros

[ARTI1]

Have created two date Macros to take out a subset of a huge dataset. Below is the code

data Start rest ;
set Start3;
if start_date2 GE &fildt1. and start_date2 LE &fildt2. then output start;
else output rest;
run;

The date macros are producing proper dates but the If condition is throwing error

The error I am getting is 

ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: !, !!, &, *, **, +, -, /, <, <=, <>,
=, >, ><, >=, AND, EQ, GE, GT, IN, LE, LT, MAX, MIN, NE, NG, NL, NOTIN, OR, ^=, |,
||, ~=.

ERROR 388-185: Expecting an arithmetic operator.

ERROR 76-322: Syntax error, statement will be ignored.

What am I doing wrong here?

[novinosrin]

Can you show the community what the date macros are resolving to and data type of your start_dates

[ARTI1]

SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable FILDT1 resolves to 27SEP2018

NOTE: Line generated by the macro variable "FILDT1".
335 27SEP2018
-------
22
SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable FILDT2 resolves to 03OCT2018
NOTE: Line generated by the macro variable "FILDT2".
335 03OCT2018

[novinosrin · Accepted solution]

Can you try the change below

data Start rest ;
set Start3;
if start_date2 GE "&fildt1."d and start_date2 LE "&fildt2."d then output start;
else output rest;
run;

[ARTI1]

Thank you! I had used single quotes and it threw me the same error.