SAS macro error

Question

I submit the following program

%let col1 = dept; %let data = company; proc sql; select * from &data, employee where &data.&col1 = employee.name; quit;

And I get this error:

ERROR: The following columns were not found in the contributing tables: companydept.

What caused such error?

Answer 1

The first period after the macro variable is used as a macro delimiter. You need to add another period like this.

&data..&col1 =