I have isolated my problem into a small piece of code. In this example I am passing a parameter to a macro. The parameter is a variable name that can be either a numeric or a character variable. Depending on the type I want to copy the value to a new variable inside the macro.     %macro test(name=); length numvar 8 charvar $ 200; if vtype(&name) = "N" then do; numvar = &name; end; if vtype(&name) = "C" then do; charvar = &name; end; %mend test; data work.test; set sashelp.class; %test(name=age); %test(name=name); run;   The problem is that this throws a note (either "character values have been converted to numeric" or vice versa) which I don't like. I think it happens because SAS will always parse the code, so will even parse "charvar = &name" even is &name is a numeric variable (and vice versa again).   I don't want to add additional parameters, nor can I change this macro to be used from outside the datastep.   What are your thoughts?   edit: slightly modified the code by adding a second macro call with a variable of a different type. ... View more