rowmiss(varlist) doesn't count although varlist contains missing values

[tab hin]

Hi, I have created a varlist

global x immiyear corigin gebmonat

containing a total of 346 variables. I checked manually whether those variables contain missing values and it turned out they do. The missing values are decoded to .a-.h. Now I want to calculate the number of missing values of each observation as a new variable as

egen anzmis = rowmiss(`x')

, but it counts 0 for all observations. If I insert every singe variable instead of the varlist as

egen anzmis = rowmiss(immiyear corigin gebmonat)

the code works. I followed the instructions for rowmiss and studied the STATA help but couldn't find any reason why my code doesn't work.
Thanks for help / answers to my problem in advance!
Tabea

[Rich Goldstein]

that's because you defined a global but then referenced it as though it was a local; when you refer to a global you need to say $x rather than `x'; see

help macro

[tab hin]

Thank you!