topic Re: Converting year formats in SAS Programming

Converting year formats

NLIL — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:42:20 GMT

Hello,

I have a problem with something that should be very simple:

I have two variables that are both years. The first one is year4 format, and the second one is BEST12.

All I want is to make a new variable that is these two years substracted from each other, but I just get a wierd number that I can't explain.

I have tried making the BEST12 years into year4 format, but then they all become 1965, I have no idea why!

What can I do?

I have also tried the other way around without luck.

Re: Converting year formats

PeterClemmensen — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:46:51 GMT

@NLIL hi and welcome to the SAS Community 🙂

Can you show us an example?

Re: Converting year formats

NLIL — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:56:06 GMT

Thanks!

The first variable in year4. format:

Diag_year

2000

1995

2003

and so on...

Next variable in best12 format:

birth_year:

1996

1987

2000

and so on

I just want to say:

diag_age = diag_year - birth_year;

Re: Converting year formats

novinosrin — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 13:02:10 GMT

Hi @NLIL I would assume a variable showing a year value with yearw. format is actually a SAS date value rather. Therefore to compute difference in years, you would need to extract year from the SAS date value i.e year(diag_year) and then subtract

diag_age = year(diag_year) - birth_year;

Re: Converting year formats

NLIL — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 13:05:31 GMT

THANK YOU!

Re: Converting year formats

novinosrin — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 13:06:59 GMT

You're welcome 🙂