usage of SUBSTR function

[SudheerAnkem]

what is the result of the below statement, if CUR_VAL_DTE = "200160930"  and fixmmyy = 0129

beg_date = SUBSTR(&CUR_VAL_DTE,2,4)&fixmmyy;

[Reeza]

An error, it's invalid SAS code. 

[SudheerAnkem]

Why it is an invalid SAS code? text should not be attached with quates. I mean, "200160930" is a string and 2,4 takes the string starting for the 2nd character (i.e. 2) and a length of 4 bytes. so it could be 20016. Please correct me

[RW9]

beg_date = substr("200160930",2,4)0129;

                                                   ^

Here.  What I assume you want is to concatenate the substr() result with the 0129, so maybe:

beg_date = substr("200160930",2,4) || "0129";

or

beg_date = cats(substr("200160930",2,4),"0129");

Note however that your resulting string will look like this:

01600129

As the 2 means, start at character 2, and then read 4 characters from there, per the manual:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000212264.htm

[SudheerAnkem]

Thank you and all others who responded to my query. Since, I don't have SAS compiler facility readily, I posted these queires. Please excuse me if it is an offence.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Take a look at SAS University Edition, which is specifically made for learning purposes.

[RW9]

As per your other post some minutes back, the macro variable gets replaced with the text you specify, then that gets passed into the SAS compiler, which throws an error as @Reeza has mentioned.

beg_date = SUBSTR("200160930",2,4)0129;

I would suggest looking through the manual at each function you need explanation on.  Then with the code you have replace the

&<variable>

With the text you give.  Then check that it looks like valid SAS code.  Macro only generates text, Base SAS is the language.