Quotes in X Statements

[Junyong]

I want to use environment variables in X statement. For example,

x'%programfiles%\sashome\sasfoundation\9.4\sas.exe';

The problem is that quotes in X statements are optional. I originally put single quotes around the path as %PROGRAMFILES% contains one space—C:\Program Files. It seems SAS only reads the contents inside the single quotes and requires double quotes due to the space in %PROGRAMFILES%.

x'"%programfiles%\sashome\sasfoundation\9.4\sas.exe"';

But this doesn't work as well. How can I reconcile those quotes with X statements?

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

Run these commands with the filename pipe method and see what response(s) you get.

Example:

filename oscmd pipe '"%programfiles%\sashome\sasfoundation\9.4\sas.exe" 2>&1';

data _null_;
infile oscmd;
input;
put _infile_;
run;

The SAS log will contain all responses.