They differ by the number of ampersands preceding the macro variable.
Right, but among the 6 in your post, #1 is identical to #4, and #2 is identical to #5, and #3 is identical to #6.
Agreed. they are the same to me too.
I have no idea, anymore, of what I had attempted to post back then. It appears that the discussion was whether periods after a macro variable would cause the variable not to be resolved. However, my example didn't correctly show that and, in fact, was confusing to say the least.
I just ran the following and they both appear to run correctly whether they do or don't include periods:
%let i=2;
%let name=acct_num;
/* All of the following work */
data x;
acct_num2=12345;
put &&name&&i;
run;
data x;
acct_num2=12345;
put &&name&&i.;
run;
data x;
acct_num2=12345;
put &&name.&&i;
run;
data x;
acct_num2=12345;
put &&name.&&i.;
run;
Am I missing something? Those two sets of 3 data steps look the same to me.
remove double quote.
put &&name&i. ;
Hi Steve
among these responses, has someone suggested placing an = at the end?
Instead of
put "&&name&i.";
try
data ;
acct_num=123456789 ;
put &&name&i=;
run ;
Are you ready for the spotlight? We're accepting content ideas for SAS Innovate 2025 to be held May 6-9 in Orlando, FL. The call is open until September 25. Read more here about why you should contribute and what is in it for you!
Learn how use the CAT functions in SAS to join values from multiple variables into a single value.
Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel.