Macro programming for dates

[Shmuel]

@CamRutherford, I quote your posts:

I'd want a macro because I reference these dates a lot 

and:

How would I reference each date though?

You should be aware of two different terms: macro program and macro variables.

Within a macro program you can generate sas code according to arguments given.

Macro variables can be craeted in various ways: by a datastep or by %let statement.

The last can be either in or out of a macro program.

And be aware that macro variable can be global, available anywhere in your sas session or

local. ie available only inside a specific macro program.

In your case, you want several macro variables, each per different date.

You got some posts how to do it by a datastep.

The call symput statement assingns a value to a macro variable.

I quote here my code posted, leaving you to complete more assignments as you like:

data _NULL_;
  /*=== calculate dates ===*/
       dt = today();
       dt_1y = intnx('year',dt,-1,'same');
       dt_3m = intnx('month',dt,-3,'same');
       dt_6m = intnx('month',dt,-6,'same');
       dt_9m = intnx('month',dt,-9,'same');
       dt_fpm =  intnx('month',dt,-1,'beginning');
       dt_lpm =  intnx('month',dt,-1,'end');     /* or = toady() - day(today());  */
 
/*=== assign dates to macro variables ===*/
      call symput('toady',left(dt));
      call symput('dt_1y',left(dt_1y));
      call symput('dt_3m',left(dt_3m));
      ...... /* choose your macro variable names and assign the dates calculated */ 
run;

%put &today &dt_3y  &dt_3m;

Run the code and check the log. The numbers you got is the eqivalent to dates calculated.

As to the question how you use it, here is a demo:

data _null_;
  today = &today;
  put today ddmmyy10.;

  dt_1y = &dt_1y;
  put 'today last year = ' dt_1y ddmmyy10.;

   tdr = &dt_3m;
   put 'Today 3Mths ago  = ' tdr date9.;

run;