topic convert macro variable to datetime in SAS Programming

convert macro variable to datetime

shubham1 — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 13:04:26 GMT

I have below macro variable

%let x=01JAN2020:00:00:00:447;

i want it to convert to datetime25.6;

How can i do that ?

Re: convert macro variable to datetime

tomrvincent — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 13:25:50 GMT

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Convert-macro-variable-to-datetime/m-p/608995#M177284

Re: convert macro variable to datetime

PaigeMiller — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 13:54:46 GMT

@shubham1 wrote:

I have below macro variable

%let x=01JAN2020:00:00:00:447;

i want it to convert to datetime25.6;

How can i do that ?

Macro variables do not have formats. They are text strings.

If you want to treat this macro variable as a SAS date/time value, so you can compare other date/time values to it to see if the other data/time value is before or after your macro variable &x, then it must be a number representing the number of seconds since midnight 1/1/60.

data _null_;
	call symputx('x','01JAN2020:00:00:00.447'dt);
run;
%put &=x;

If you want to display it in a specific format, for example in a label or title, you can apply formatting then.

title "This is a title showing the datetime value of %sysfunc(putn(&x,datetime25.6))";

but if you are not planning to use this macro variable in titles or labels, do not format it. This is so important, I am going to say this three more times.

if you are not planning to use this macro variable in titles or labels, do not format it

Re: convert macro variable to datetime

Tom — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 14:01:51 GMT

What do you plan to do with it? Are you going to us it to generate code? If so the way to specify a datetime constant in code is to quote a string that the DATETIME informat can read and suffix the quoted string with DT (for DateTime).

%let x=01JAN2020:00:00:00:447;
data want;
  set have ;
  where mydatetime_var < "&x"dt ;
run;