Use of substr function inside macro code

[Sejin]

Hello.

I am having a problem while writing a macro code. I want to use substr function inside th macro.

Here is an example.

%macro name (timej);

%let year=substr("&timej",1,4);

proc sql;

create table table2 as

select * from table&year;

quit;

%mend;

%name (19901231);

So macro variable timej is 8-digit numeric value which implies year, month, date.

I need to take apart the first 4 digits from the variable.

The above code doesn't work. I tried %substr or other things that I can think of, but never worked properly.

And I want to do it INSIDE the macro code.

Could anyone give some advices for this?

Thanks for reading my thread.

[ChrisNZ]

You can either use the macro function

%let year=%substr(&timej,1,4);

or the sas function via the %sysfunc macro function

%let year=%sysfunc(substr(&timej,1,4));

In any case, no quotes should be used.

[kiranv_ · Accepted solution]

below code should work.

%macro name (timej);

 

%let year= %sysfunc(substr(&timej,1,4));
%put &year;

proc sql;

create table table2 as

select * from table&year;

quit;

 

%mend;

 

%name(19901231);

[Sejin]

Both of you were right. I really appreciate your help. God bless you. 🙂