Tokens are delimited by spaces or special tokens by default. Sometimes when you use a macro variable reference in combination with other text, the reference does not resolve as you expect if you simply concatenate it. Instead, you might need to delimit the reference by adding a period to the end of it.

A period immediately following a macro variable reference acts as a delimiter. That is, a period at the end of a reference forces the macro processor to recognize the end of the reference. The period does not appear in the resulting text.

The following example illustrates using a delimiter, a period (.), between the libref and the table name to reference the macro variable.

%let CarType=Wagon;
%let lib=sashelp;
title "&CarType.s from the &lib..CARS Table";
proc freq data=&lib..cars;
   tables Origin/nocum;
   where Type="&CarType";
run;
proc print data=&lib..cars;
  var Make Model Type MSRP;
  where Type="&CarType";
run;