Reserved Words in the Macro Facility

Macro Facility Word Rules

The following rules apply to the macro facility.

Do not use a reserved word as the name of a macro, a macro variable, or a macro label. Reserved words include words reserved by both the macro facility and the operating environment. When a macro name is a macro facility reserved word, the macro processor issues a warning, and the macro is neither compiled nor available for execution. The macro facility reserves the words listed under Reserved Words for internal use.
Do not prefix the name of a macro language element with SYS because SAS reserves the SYS prefix for the names of macro language elements supplied with SAS software.
Do not prefix macro variables names with SYS, AF, or DMS in order to avoid macro name conflicts.