SAS new variable name using macro variable

2
votes

I am trying to create a new variable based on the value of a macro variable. However, SAS highlights 'vari' as red, seemingly indicating that I am doing something wrong. The statement still seems to get executed correctly though. Any thoughts?

%let i=7;
data d1;
    set d1;
    vari&i=7;
run;
1
sassas-macro

1 Answers

3
votes

SAS syntax highlighter is an aid, but there are many situations where it is not "correct". Particularly for the macro language, it can't always guess how symbols will resolve. It doesn't have all the information (or intelligence) as the SAS word scanner/tokenizer. I use syntax highlighting as a hint that something might be wrong, but I ignore it when I've checked the code and confirmed it is correct.

The code in your example is fine.