topic Re: Convert number to date in SAS Programming

Convert number to date

Rookie_123 — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 17:38:21 GMT

I have a column/variable named Release_Date with length 8 format 11. and informat 11.

The observation in that column are in the form YYYYMMDD. SAS actually reads them as pure number

I want to convert those observation in DD/MM/YYYY format with format and informat as DDMMYY10.

For example

Release_Date is 20180612 then I want 12/06/2018

Any help with this regard will be appreciated

Re: Convert number to date

ballardw — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 17:53:59 GMT

One way:

data example;
release_date=20180612; 
release_date = input(put(release_date,8.),yymmdd8.);
format release_date ddmmyy10.;

run;

Another is to go back to when the data were read and use the yymmdd8. informat instead of 11.

Re: Convert number to date

Rookie_123 — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 17:56:09 GMT

I read the date from Access database with PROC IMPORT and the data itself is in the format YYYYMMDD.

So I think while reading itself I will need to reverse the observations to be read as DD/MM/YYYY

I dont know if that is possible or not

Re: Convert number to date

Rookie_123 — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:05:27 GMT

Thanks the approach mentioned in the answer is perfect for my usecase

Re: Convert number to date

ballardw — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 20:29:20 GMT

SAS a fairly large number of INFORMATS to read dates, times and datetimes in a wide variety of common layouts. It is frequently much easier to find an informat than to write code to parse bits. An important thing to remember is when using the INPUT function that it expects to read a character value and if your variable is actually numeric the default conversion may not work and you may need to use a PUT function call with an appropriate format to match the INFORMAT you want to use in the INPUT call.