CALL SYMPUT Routine

Required Arguments

macro-variable

can be one of the following items:

• a character string that is a SAS name, enclosed in quotation marks. For example, to assign the character string testing to macro variable NEW, submit the following statement:

  call symput('new','testing');

• the name of a character variable whose values are SAS names. For example, this DATA step creates the three macro variables SHORTSTP, PITCHER, and FRSTBASE and respectively assign them the values ANN, TOM, and BILL.

  data team1;
     input position : $8. player : $12.;
     call symput(position,player);
  datalines;
  shortstp Ann
  pitcher Tom
  frstbase Bill
  ;

• a character expression that produces a macro variable name. This form is useful for creating a series of macro variables. For example, the CALL SYMPUT statement builds a series of macro variable names by combining the character string POS and the left-aligned value of _N_ and assigns values to the macro variables POS1, POS2, and POS3.

  data team2;
     input position : $12. player $12.;
     call symput('POS'||left(_n_), position);
     datalines;
  shortstp Ann
  pitcher Tom
  frstbase Bill
  ;

value

is the value to be assigned, which can be

• a string enclosed in quotation marks. For example, this statement assigns the string testing to the macro variable NEW:

  call symput('new','testing');

• the name of a numeric or character variable. The current value of the variable is assigned as the value of the macro variable. If the variable is numeric, SAS performs an automatic numeric-to-character conversion and writes a message in the log. Later sections on formatting rules describe the rules that SYMPUT follows in assigning character and numeric values of DATA step variables to macro variables.

  Note: This form is most useful when macro-variable is also the name of a SAS variable or a character expression that contains a SAS variable. A unique macro variable name and value can be created from each observation, as shown in the previous example for creating the data set TEAM1.

  If macro-variable is a character string, SYMPUT creates only one macro variable, and its value changes in each iteration of the program. Only the value assigned in the last iteration remains after program execution is finished.
• a DATA step expression. The value returned by the expression in the current observation is assigned as the value of macro-variable. In this example, the macro variable named HOLDATE receives the value July 4,1997:

  data c;
     input holiday mmddyy.;
     call symput('holdate',trim(left(put(holiday,worddate.))));
  datalines;
  070497
  ;
  run;

  If the expression is numeric, SAS performs an automatic numeric-to-character conversion and writes a message in the log. Later sections on formatting rules describe the rules that SYMPUT follows in assigning character and numeric values of expressions to macro variables.