title: how to include special character in sas macro
body: <p>I wrote a sas macro which require two input variable. <code>Var1</code> is a date variable. <code>var2</code> starts with <code>and pern in(</code> and ends with <code>)</code>, the bracket contains a serials of numbers which are separated by commas.</p>
  
  <pre><code>%let var1 = '01DEC2011'd;
  %let var2 =  and pern in (10107,11308,11703,11850);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now I first define the input variables, then define the macro and run it. It works fine</p>
  
  <pre><code>%let var1 = '01DEC2011'd;
  %let var2 =  and pern in (10107,11308,11703,11850);
  
  %macro program;
  ...
  %mend;
  %program;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, I want to change the way  I assign input variables, and let my macro looks like the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>%macro program(var1, var2);
  ...
  %mend;
  %program( '01DEC2011'd, and pern in (10107,11308,11703,11850)); 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Because both var1 and var2 contains special characters ' , and (), so the macro cannot be exucuted correctly. Can anyone teach me how to call my macro please. </p>