How to concatenate formatted values in SAS

Question

I'm exporting data in JSON format with sas using this macro I made:

%macro json4datatables(ds,path,file,charvars,numvars)
    / store source
    DES="json4datatables(ds,path,file,charvars,numvars)";

    /* creates a json with no headers
     * a bit like a csv without the first line
     * it takes thus less space
     * but you have to know which column is what
     */

    data _null_;
        length line $300;
        set &ds nobs=nobs end=end;
        file "&path.&file." encoding='utf-8' bom/**/ ;

        line = '[';

        %if &charvars ne %then %do;
            %do i=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&charvars));
                %let charvar = %scan(&charvars, &i);
                %if &i ne 1 %then %do;
                    line = cats(line,',');
                %end;
                line = cats(line,'"',&charvar,'"');
            %end;
        %end;
        %if &numvars ne %then %do;
            %do i=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&numvars));
                %let numvar = %scan(&numvars, &i);
                %if &i ne 1 OR &charvars ne %then %do;
                    line = cats(line,',');
                %end;
                line = cats(line,'',&numvar,'');
            %end;
        %end;

        line = cats(line,']');

        if _n_=1 then put '{"data": [';
        if not end then put line +(-1) ',';
        else do;
            put line;
            put ']}';
        end;
    run;

%mend json4datatables;

but my problem is that raw values are exported.
I would like to export the formatted values.

How can I achieve this?
I'm thinking maybe there is a function that allows to concatenate formatted values instead of values and I could replace cats() with it.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Use the VVALUE() function.

line = cats(line,'',vvalue(&numvar),'');

Also why not just use the CATX() function? Replace

%if &i ne 1 OR &charvars ne %then %do;
    line = cats(line,',');
%end;
line = cats(line,'',vvalue(&numvar),'');

with

line = catx(',',line,vvalue(&numvar));

For the character values use the QUOTE() function.

line = catx(',',line,quote(cats(vvalue(&charvar))));

Move the addition of the square brackets to the end.

line = cats('[',line,']');