Date:         Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:24:48 -0400
Reply-To:     David Cabana <drcabana@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         David Cabana <drcabana@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Why is this an error?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

I am looking for an explanation of the following, which I tested on
SAS 9.1.3, service pack 4, on Windows XP.

This will write the value of pi to the log:

data _null_;
    x = constant('pi');
   put x ;
run;

This will fail with an error:

data _null_;
    put constant('pi');
run;

Why is the second version erroneous?

The error was:
ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: a name,
arrayname, _ALL_, _CHARACTER_,
              _CHAR_, _NUMERIC_.
ERROR 76-322: Syntax error, statement will be ignored.

Thank you,
David Cabana