SAS Macro Variable Resolution Timing

I thought this was neat and quirky. The implications of it are important, too. When you assign a macro variable in SAS, it doesn’t resolve immediately. It resolves It will also warn you if the variable doesn’t exist yet, too.

%let x = &y;
%let y = z;
%put &x;

Will output

z

Even though, when x was defined, y did not exist. We’ll get the following warning, which can be ignored.

WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference Y not resolved.

I’d love to know if there’s a way of turning off that warning.