topic Re: Transform time8. to $CHAR8. in SAS Programming

Transform time8. to $CHAR8.

csetzkorn — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 14:19:50 GMT

I would like to transform a time8. Dataset column to a $CHAR8. Column to represent, for example, 15:47:39 as the same string/$CHAR8. Not SAS’s internal representation. I tried:

SomeTime=put(SomeTime,time8.);
format SomeTime $CHAR8.;

in my dataset without success. Any ideas? Thanks!

Re: Transform time8. to $CHAR8.

PaigeMiller — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 14:26:40 GMT

In general, it should not be necessary, as far as I can think of examples, to turn a SAS time (or date or datetime) value to a character variable. It seems like you are making your life difficult for yourself.

However, in your code, the variable SomeTime cannot be both numeric and character. It is numeric. If you want a character variable, you have to give it a different variable name.

Re: Transform time8. to $CHAR8.

Rick_SAS — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 14:29:04 GMT

Two ways: use PUT or if the variable already has a format, you can use VVALUE to get the formatted valu:

data A;
length str str2 $8;
format time time8.;
time = '15:47:39't;
str = put(time, time8.);
str2 = vvalue(time);
run;

proc print; run;

Re: Transform time8. to $CHAR8.

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 14:55:19 GMT

@csetzkorn wrote:

I would like to transform a time8. Dataset column to a $CHAR8. Column to represent, for example, 15:47:39 as the same string/$CHAR8. Not SAS’s internal representation. I tried:
SomeTime=put(SomeTime,time8.);
format SomeTime $CHAR8.;
in my dataset without success. Any ideas? Thanks!

You always have to create a new variable when you want to switch types.

So you might do

data want;
set have (rename=(sometime=_sometime));
length sometime $8;
sometime = put(_sometime,time8.);
drop _sometime;
run;