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sassas-macro

'Open code statement recursion detected' when running %let %put statement (SAS Macro)

When I run the following, it works fine:

%let mname = ABC<2>;
%put &mname;
ABC<2>

%let mname2 = %scan("&mname.", 2, '<>');
%put &mname2;
2

However, when I changed mname2 to the following, it gives the error:

%let mname2 = %scan("&mname.", 1, '<');
%put &mname2;
ERROR: Open code statement recursion detected.

Any idea what is causing it?

Solution

  • Since you added quotes around the value passed to the %SCAN() function and then only selected one of the quotes as the output you have generated unbalanced quotes.

    In regular SAS code (and most programming languages) to allow the compiler to tell the difference between a variable name or a keyword and a string literal you add quotes around the string

    But the macro processor language is different. To the macro processor everything is a string and it just looks for the & or % triggers to tell whether there is anything it needs to operate on.

    49   %let mname = ABC<2>;
50   %put &=mname;
MNAME=ABC<2>
51   %put %scan(&mname,1,<>);
ABC
52   %put %scan(&mname,2,<>);
2

    If you think it is possible the %SCAN() function will return unbalanced quotes or other things that might need macro quoting use the %QSCAN() function instead.