topic Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant? in SAS Programming

Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Jakob_midspar — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:20:38 GMT

Hi Community

I'm in need of a function or a format that can help me convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant.

What I have is a variable containing a SAS date e.g. 21295, (21. of April 2018), what I need is to convert the SAS date to a SAS date constant i.e. '21apr2018'd.

How can I do this without choosing a date9. format for the SAS date and concatenating it with ''d?

Cheers,

Jakob

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:34:44 GMT

@Jakob_midspar wrote:

Hi Community

I'm in need of a function or a format that can help me convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant.

What I have is a variable containing a SAS date e.g. 21295, (21. of April 2018), what I need is to convert the SAS date to a SAS date constant i.e. '21apr2018'd.

How can I do this without choosing a date9. format for the SAS date and concatenating it with ''d?

Cheers,

Jakob

From my experience, you never need to convert. 21295 can be used in any place where you'd use '21apr2018'd.

And you always need to apply the date9 format, quotes, and the letter d to do this "conversion".

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

NewSASuser2018 — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:35:08 GMT

Hi Jacob,

I am by no means an expert! However, you might find this link helpful:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000199367.htm

Best

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

RW9 — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:40:09 GMT

Could you clarify why? Date literals are only really used to get date text which is not in data into SAS code. There really isn't much purpose in it for any other circumstance?

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Jakob_midspar — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:46:23 GMT

Sure, I can try and clarify as to why I need that SAS date constant instead of simply the SAS date.

I'm getting data from a Teradata source using an ODBC connection and apparently the interpreter can only translate a SAS date constant to Teradata and not the SAS date itself, beats me why!

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

emrancaan — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:46:45 GMT

Try this

Data DateValue;
format dat date9. ;
	dat=21295;
	xdat=put(dat, date9.);
run;

once in character format. you can use it as variable or contant

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Jakob_midspar — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:51:37 GMT

That's how far I've gotten myself - but still needs the gnyffs and the d ( '21apr2018'd ) for it to be recognized as a SAS date constant.

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

RW9 — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:55:13 GMT

Not heard that before. I think you probably mean dates in YYYY-MM-DD format, not SAS date literal, just a guess there.

So when passing through SQL, you need to have the code in such a way that the database understands it, not SAS, as it is effectively all being passed over to the database.

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Jakob_midspar — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:58:10 GMT

The interpreter only understands '21apr2018'd as legit input not 21295.

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Astounding — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 14:13:11 GMT

How can I do this without choosing a date9. format for the SAS date and concatenating it with ''d?

Why would you rule that out? It's exactly what you need.

If double quotes are permissible:

sdc = quote(put(date,date9.)) || 'd';

If single quotes are required:

sdc = cats("'", put(date, date9.), "'d");

Re: Can I convert a SAS date to a SAS date constant?

Jakob_midspar — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 09:21:24 GMT

Great solution, thanks for your input.
Cheers,
Jakob