topic Re: Create new variable based on initial values of old variable. in New SAS User

Create new variable based on initial values of old variable.

Fredron — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 09:29:34 GMT

I have a variable with dates and time values such as:

22SEP15:15:10:35
06JUN16:15:03:53

I would like to create three new variables based on if the value start with 01-10,11-20 or 21-31.
But I am having problems only picking up the information of the first two digits.

Re: Create new variable based on initial values of old variable.

andreas_lds — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 09:34:03 GMT

Do you have a numeric variable formatted as datetime (aka proper sas datetime) or a string containing a datetime-value? When working with date and time data it is almost always useful to convert the data to a sas datetime.

And unfortunately i can't see any connection between the datetimes and the new variables.

Re: Create new variable based on initial values of old variable.

PeterClemmensen — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 09:34:24 GMT

Hi and welcome to the SAS Community 🙂

Are these actual datetime values (numeric) or character values?

Re: Create new variable based on initial values of old variable.

Fredron — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 09:55:47 GMT

I'm not sure to be honest, I just imported a dataset and did proc print to have a look at it.

Re: Create new variable based on initial values of old variable.

Fredron — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 12:34:33 GMT

It seems like I have SAS datetime.

For the regression I am running I would like to see if it matters if it's the beginning, middle or the end of a month.
So I would like all events that happened during the 01-10 date of the months in one category, the events that happened during day 11-20 of the months in another and the last 21-31 in a third category.
But I am stuck, I just want SAS to check the first two numbers and sort after that, but can't get it to work.

Thanks for all help

Re: Create new variable based on initial values of old variable.

Tom — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 15:32:19 GMT

Sounds like you want to get to the day of the month.

day(datepart(datetime_var))

And generate a new variable with 3 values.

day=day(datepart(datetime_var));
if 0<day<=10 then month_part=1;
else if day <=20 then month_part=2;
else if day <=31 then month_part=3;
else month_part=.;