Masking ;*

[DariaKarpova318]

Dear community,

I am working on a macro to copy a directory along with all of its content (in SAS EG on a server if relevant) and the issue is that some directories/files have very weird names. Particularly, one of them is named something like "text;text;;*';*" (without double quotes). So to process it correctly I've tried to use %str() function like this:

%let dir_name=%str(text;text;;*';*);

but the last 3 symbols (after the second *) are identified as a comment. I don't get any error but later I can't run any code due to unmatched quotes. Which is another issue because I can't fix it (I tried running the following but it doesn't help:

; *'; *"; );

Returning to the original problem I've found the following workaround:

%let dir_name=%str("text;text;;*';*");

But it is possible that one of the folders/files will contain a double quote resulting in unmatched quotes again. Any suggestions? 

Thank you in advance!

[Tom]

You need to show what particular statements are causing you trouble.

But why are you trying to do this with macro code? 

Having * and ; in the value of actual character variable will not cause any trouble.

Just have the macro generate actual SAS code. 

If you need to pass a string to a macro in as in input parameter then just include the quotes around the values so that the macro processor will ignore them.

%mymacro(filename='strange*;name');

Then the SAS code you just use the value of the macro variable anywhere it could use a string literal.

data _null_;
  rc=fdelete( &filename );
  put rc=;
run;

[svh]

Sometimes I need a different macro quoting function depending on the characters that are in the value. E.g., %SUPERQ() is an example of a macro quoting function that can mask more symbols than the other macro quoting functions.

https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/mcrolref/1.0/p0ldeqll9sabzcn1jxnvid754b3t.htm

[DariaKarpova318 · Accepted solution]

UPD: The issue wasn't the ";*" part but the single quote which wasn't masked by %. Now with additional % before the quote it works fine. Thanks everyone and sorry for the silly question. 🙂

[DariaKarpova318]

Also as a better alternative to masking every quote I've used %nrbquote (also %bquote) which don't require %.