topic Problems with dates for a beginner in SAS Programming

Problems with dates for a beginner

underarmnat — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:14:11 GMT

Hi all,

I have just started on SAS and have converted a text file and done multiple manipulations with it including changing dates into a relavant format.

I have a question, I want to recode one date point (data point 555) from 21/05/2006 to the 15/05/2006 and every method I use ends up with 1/1/1960. I have converted everything to the ddmmyy10. format.

For example;

data sunscreen;

modify sunscreen;

if studyid=555 then melanomadate = 15/05/2006;

This ends up with 1/1/1960

So I then tried

For example;

data sunscreen;

modify sunscreen;

if studyid=555 then melanomadate = ('15/05/2006', ddmmyy10.);

run;

And got error,

Any thoughts/ideas?

Re: Problems with dates for a beginner

ChrisNZ — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:16:17 GMT

Try

melanomadate = '15may2006'd;

Re: Problems with dates for a beginner

underarmnat — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:20:34 GMT

Thank you, works!

Re: Problems with dates for a beginner

ChrisNZ — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:54:09 GMT

15/05/2006 performs a division. The result is about 0, which is 01/01/1960 as a sas date.

Re: Problems with dates for a beginner

Patrick — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 09:14:30 GMT

@underarmnat

Your 2nd attempt was actually pretty close. You just forgot to also use the SAS INPUT() function to tell SAS what it should be doing with the date string and the informat.

data test;
  melanomadate = input('15/05/2006', ddmmyy10.);
  format melomadate ddmmyy10.;
run;

Re: Problems with dates for a beginner

underarmnat — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 09:18:37 GMT

Thanks for your help Patrick