I think you may think about doing the following:

1. Run Proc Contents and save the output to a data set. Then, all the variable name is under a column, and assume that the column name is named COLNAME, the data set is named ONE. 2. data two; set one; if (using scan function to select all the records in which the value of COLNAME contains "var"); call symput('v'||left(_n_),colname); run;

You will get what you want. Hope it helps.

Chen Xi

In article <3156789C.7CF7@marketresponse.nl>, Jon Webb <j.webb@marketresponse.nl> writes... >In macro-language, I want to break a series of variables into seperate variables. Also, I want to >know the number of variables. I have managed to do so with space-seperated variables, but have >problems with dealing with the dash-symbol. > >This is what I want: > >input: var8-var11 var18 var20-var21 >result: %let v1 = var8; %let v2 = var9; ... ; %let v6 = var20; %let v7 = var21; %let nrvar = 7; > >Has anyone already written a macro-utility like that? > >Eric Hoogenboom.