topic Re: Hardcode date for one subject in SAS Programming

Hardcode date for one subject

Nasya — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:29:18 GMT

Hi,

I need to hardcode the existing date value which is numeric for one of the ID's which are character in nature. There are multiple records for a single ID.

Here is the example,

ID Date Date

001-01 26-Feb-2018 27-Feb-2018

002-02 27-March-2018 27-March-2018

003-03 01-Jan-2017 01-Jan-2017

004-04 08-Nov-2016 08-Nov-2016

005-05 06-March-2018 06-March-2018

 data raw ;
       set dm;
        by ID;
   
    if ID= "001-01" and Date= "26FEB2018" then do;
       Date="27FEB2018";
       end;
  
run;

I see this following error with the above code:

NOTE: Character values have been converted to numeric values at the places given by: (Line):(Column).

Any suggestions please.

Thank you,

Regards,

Nasya

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

ybolduc — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:33:03 GMT

You simply need to add d after the closing quote of your date string to make SAS understand it needs to treat it as a date and not a string.

Thanks,

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

ballardw — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:35:24 GMT

Is your "date" variable character or numeric with a format attached?

It is best to show messages from the log by copying the data step or procedure code along with the messages from log (One copy) and paste into a code box opened on the forum with the {I} menu icon.

That way see everything.

If the date variable is actually numeric you need to use the form "27FEB2018"d or "28FEB2018'd to tell SAS that the value is a date literal and not a character value.

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

Reeza — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:38:34 GMT

Are the date variables character? If so, thats not a good idea and you should convert them.

If they are characters your match string has to be exactly the same, which in this case it's clearly not.

Data is shown as 28-Feb-2018, but your comparison string is in the date9 format, 28Feb2018. If it's even a different case or an extra space it won't match.

If it's a number, just add the d after the quotation marks to tell SAS that it's a date.
In fact, since it says character to numeric conversion, I suspect it's actually a date, so adding the d is all you need.

d -> date literal

n -> name literal

t -> time literal

dt -> datetime literal.

  if ID= "001-01" and Date= "26FEB2018"d then Date="27FEB2018"d;

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

Nasya — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 17:27:01 GMT

Date is a numeric type with format E8601DA10. in the original data set.

Yes you are right: This is how the date is seen in the original data set

For example 2018-02-27 but needs to be hardcoded as 26FEB2018.

Just adding d isn't working because of the above condition?

How to handle this?

Thank you,

Regards,

Nasya

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

Nasya — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 20:16:23 GMT

Yes, date is numeric with a format E8601DA10.

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

Reeza — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 21:04:39 GMT

@Nasya wrote:

Date is a numeric type with format E8601DA10. in the original data set.

Yes you are right: This is how the date is seen in the original data set

For example 2018-02-27 but needs to be hardcoded as 26FEB2018.

Just adding d isn't working because of the above condition?

How to handle this?

Thank you,

Regards,

Ep**bleep**ha

Post your modified code and log. Including D alone should fix the issue, since SAS requires dates to be specified in the date9 format with the d. What makes you think it's not working?

Re: Hardcode date for one subject

ybolduc — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 01:11:38 GMT

Hi Nasya,

The format you apply on your columns does not matter here. When using date constants, SAS expects them to be in a given format. As I mentionned earlier, if you add a d at the end like '26FEB2018'd, you should obtain the behaviour you are looking for.

For more details, please refer to the SAS Documentation: http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/62955/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000780334.htm

Thanks,