Properly mask comment character (*)

[Andrea_Bocco]

I have more or less the following code:

/* previous operations to get macrovariable values for foldin, end and out */

%let final_command=cat &foldin./*-&end. >> &out.;

%macro doit(command);
  filename p pipe "&command" lrecl=32767;
  data _null_;
  infile p;
  input;
  put _infile_;
  run;
%mend;

%doit(&final_command)

which, under a Linux environment, should paste together a few files named a-..., b-..., c-... and so on (where the dots reprents the same value that corresponds to &end) from the folder whose name is in foldin to a file named &out.

I've did a few test and the problem is clearly that I'm passing the character * as part of the macrovariable value. I've tried to use quoting functions, but I either don't mask him well enough and he gets read as a comment during macro execution, or I do it much and final_command isn't resolved properly.

Any idea how to solve it? I'm quite confused about quoting functions, so I would appreciate if someone can point out a very simple and easy to understand guide about them.

[data_null__ · Accepted solution]

%let final_command="cat &foldin./*-&end. >> &out.";
%put NOTE: &=Final_command;

[Kurt_Bremser]

This might be one of the instances where it is better to have quotes in the macro variable.