SAS 9.4 Macro Language, 5th Edition

Deciding When to Use a Macro Quoting Function

and Which Function to Use

Use a macro quoting function anytime you want to assign to a macro variable a special

character that could be interpreted as part of the macro language. The following table

describes the special characters to mask when used as part of a text string and which

macro quoting functions are useful in each situation.

Table 7.2 Special Characters and Macro Quoting Guidelines

Special

Character Must Be Masked

Quoted by

All Macro

Quoting

Functions? Remarks

+-*/<>=^|¬ ~

# LE LT EQ

NE GE GT

AND OR

NOT IN

To prevent it from being

treated as an operator in

the argument of an

%EVAL function

Yes AND, OR, IN, and NOT need to

be masked because they are

interpreted as mnemonic operators

by an %EVAL and by

%SYSEVALF.

blank To maintain, rather than

ignore, a leading,

trailing, or isolated

blank

Yes

; To prevent a macro

program statement from

ending prematurely

Yes

, (comma) To prevent it from

indicating a new

function argument,

parameter, or parameter

value

Yes

Deciding When to Use a Macro Quoting Function and Which Function to Use 85

Special

Character Must Be Masked

Quoted by

All Macro

Quoting

Functions? Remarks

' " ( ) If it might be unmatched No Arguments that might contain

quotation marks and parentheses

should be masked with a macro

quoting function so that the macro

facility interprets the single and

double quotation marks and

parentheses as text rather than

macro language symbols or

possibly unmatched quotation

marks or parentheses for the SAS

language. With %STR, %NRSTR,

%QUOTE, and %NRQUOTE,

unmatched quotation marks and

parentheses must be marked with

a % sign. You do not have to mark

unmatched symbols in the

arguments of %BQUOTE,

%NRBQUOTE, and %SUPERQ.

%name

&name

(Depends on what the

expression might

resolve to)

No %NRSTR, %NRBQUOTE, and

%NRQUOTE mask these patterns.

To use %SUPERQ with a macro

variable, omit the ampersand from

name.

The macro facility allows you as much flexibility as possible in designing your macros.

You need to mask a special character with a macro quoting function only when the

macro processor would otherwise interpret the special character as part of the macro

language rather than as text. For example, in this statement that you must use a macro

quoting function to mask the first two semicolons to make them part of the text:

%let p=%str(proc print; run;);

However, in the macro PR, shown here, you do not need to use a macro quoting function

to mask the semicolons after PRINT and RUN:

%macro pr(start);

%if &start=yes %then

%do;

%put proc print requested;

proc print;

run;

%end;

%mend pr;

Because the macro processor does not expect a semicolon within the %DO group, the

semicolons after PRINT and RUN are not ambiguous, and they are interpreted as text.

Although it is not possible to give a series of rules that cover every situation, the

following sections describe how to use each macro quoting function. Table 7.6 on page

96 provides a summary of the various characters that might need masking and of which

macro quoting function is useful in each situation.

86 Chapter 7 • Macro Quoting