Why won't my macro variable resolve?
I have a macro variable, &myvar
, but it won't resolve when I try to put it in a data step variable. Why won't it, and what can I do to fix this?
%let myvar=Hello, world;
data _null_;
x='&myvar.';
put x=;
run;
Macro variables in SAS won't resolve when they are in single quotes, '&myvar'
. They need to be in double quotes, "&myvar"
, in order to resolve properly.
If you need to have single quotes and a resolved macro variable, you have a few options, but the simplest is:
%str(%'&myvar.%')
The %'
inside of %str
will place a single quote character (or apostrophe) in the text string by itself without causing it to be quoted.
data _null_;
x="%str(%'&myvar.%')";
put x=;
run;
or
%let myvar2 = %str(%'&myvar.%');
In SAS 9.4M6 or higher version, you can use %tslit()
to achieve the same function.
%let myvar=Hello, world;
data _null_;
x=%tslit(%superq(myvar));
put x=;
run;
%put %tslit(%superq(myvar));
x=Hello, world
'Hello, world'
This is a macro pre-defined in SAS. Here is the documentation about it:
https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lebaseutilref&docsetTarget=n1phgnraoodvpln1bm941n44yq7q.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en