topic Re: How to convert non-standard character variable to date? in SAS Programming

How to convert non-standard character variable to date?

xyxu — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 03:22:35 GMT

I have a character variable with length $7. I want to convert it into a date variable with yyyymm format. However, the values of the character variable is a bit messy. For examples, there are both "2018-09" and "2018-9". I tried to use

data want;
format date_new yymmn6.;
set have;
date_new = input(date_char, yymmn6.);
run;

but all of the new date variable values are missing.

Re: How to convert non-standard character variable to date?

Jagadishkatam — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 03:41:34 GMT

data want;
input date_char $;
date_new = input(cats(date_char,'-01'), anydtdte10.);
format date_new yymmn6.;
cards;
2018-09
2018-9
;

Re: How to convert non-standard character variable to date?

novinosrin — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 03:52:30 GMT

Use the gorgeous compress with your original idea like

data have;
input   date  $;
cards;
2018-09
2018-9
;

data want;
set have;
new_date=input(compress(date,'-'),yymmn6.) ;
format new_date date9.;
run;

Re: How to convert non-standard character variable to date?

xyxu — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 03:59:08 GMT

cool, thanks!