how to return a value from a macro called from a data step

[Gayle]

thank you!  I pared it down and now I seem to be getting what I expect.  I had symput in the macro and I guess I was unclear on how it works , removing it helped

[Tom]

There is no way for the macro to return anything to the current data step since the macro will not even start running until after the data step finishes running.

[ballardw]

Just what are those macros supposed to accomplish?

Without having the definition of the macros it may be that you also have a scope issue of expecting a macro variable to be available outside of the macro using/creating it but is only a local macro variable.

[Gayle]

I made the variable global