removing trailing spaces from a date

[tgleghorn]

I am trying to remove trailing spaces from a date so it can be used in a file name for an excel file.  I have tried using strip, left(trim and it is not working 

data _null_;
today=today();
format today yymmdd8.;
filedate1=(trim(compress(put(today,yymmdd10.),'-, '))-2);
filedate=strip(filedate1);
format filedate $8.;
call symput ('today',today);
call symput ('filedate',filedate);

run;
%put &today. &filedate.;

libname rh_list "&path.\Export_All_Records &filedate..xlsx";

This is the result:

Export_All_Records 20241111  .xlsx

[quickbluefish · Accepted solution]

Try using call symputX instead of symput.

[tgleghorn]

I will give this a try. I did figure out what I was doing wrong. moved the format filedate $8 before my strip statement

[tgleghorn]

tried the symputx and it worked. using this.. less steps. Thank you so much.

[ballardw]

Better yet, use the right format to begin with. The YYMMDDXw. format allows you to specify the separator with common choices based on a different letter in the place of the X. With N meaning NO separator.

So

data _null_;
call symputx('filedate',put(today(),yymmddn8.));
run;

[tgleghorn]

Thank you... will use this 🙂

[Tom]

If you do have a macro variable with leading and/or trailing spaces then the simplest way to remove them is to just run another %LET statement.

%let filedate=&filedate;

But you should never use the ancient CALL SYMPUT() method unless you actually need to generate macro variables with leading and/or trailing spaces.

Its replacement, CALL SYMPUTX(), was released by SAS over 30 years ago in version 6 of SAS.

[tgleghorn]

sorry!!!

[FreelanceReinh]

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@Tom wrote:

But you should never use the ancient CALL SYMPUT() method unless you actually need to generate macro variables with leading and/or trailing spaces.

Its replacement, CALL SYMPUTX(), was released by SAS over 30 years ago in version 6 of SAS.

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Hi @Tom: I agree that CALL SYMPUTX has been around for decades, but as I remember it as a "newer" feature it can't be that old. Indeed, it is listed in "What's New in the Base SAS 9.0, 9.1, and 9.1.3 Language" and I don't see it in the list "Functions and CALL Routines" of the SAS v8 documentation. It might have been available earlier as an experimental feature, though.

[Tom]

Thanks. So CALL SYMPUTX() is only 20+ years old.  I suspect I got confused with another supplanted feature that still gets used in a lot of new code.  The MISSOVER option of the INFILE statement.  The TRUNCOVER option has been around since at least some release of version 6.