SAS Certification Prep Guide, 4th Edition

Using Macro Functions to Mask Special Characters

Macro Quoting Functions

The SAS programming language uses matched pairs of either double or single quotation marks to distinguish character constants from names. The quotation marks are not stored as part of the token that they define. For example, in the following program, var is stored as a four-byte variable that has the value text. If text were not enclosed in quotation marks, it would be treated as a variable name. var2 is stored as a seven-byte variable that has the value example.

data one;
   var='text';
   text='example';
   var2=text;
run;

Similarly, the title text in the following example is Joan's Report. Although the TITLE statement contains a matched pair of double quotation marks, the title ...