topic Re: Struggle date format from system date to "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss" format in SAS Programming

Struggle date format from system date to "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss" format

niejung — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 17:15:12 GMT

I couldn't find a good sample to convert the date that I want. NEED HELP!

This is the format I want "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss"

options tz='America/New_York';  
data NY;
   NY_DT=datetime();  
   format NY_DT  datetime19.; 
	put NY_DT=datetime19.;
run;

42 options tz='America/New_York';
43 data NY;
44 NY_DT=datetime();
2 The SAS System 08:31 Tuesday, July 21, 2020

45 format NY_DT datetime19.;
46 put NY_DT=datetime19.;
47 run;

NY_DT=26JUL2020:13:10:11
NOTE: The data set WORK.NY has 1 observations and 1 variables.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
real time 0.00 seconds
cpu time 0.01 seconds

Re: Struggle date format from system date to "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss" format

niejung — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 17:29:37 GMT

Okay. I should be more patient before I do more posts. I got it too work by referring this post (https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/datetime-informat-mm-dd-yyyy-hh-mm-ss-24-hour-time-format/td-p/456917"

If anyone who has better or simple way to do the format, please share. 😊

proc format library=work;
picture dtmmddyy (default=19)
low-high = '%0m/%0d/%Y %0H:%0M:%0S' (datatype=datetime)
;
run;
options tz='America/New_York'; 
data current_datetime;

	currentDtTime=datetime();

   x=dhms(today(),0,0,time());
   format x dtmmddyy.;
   put currentDtTime=dtmmddyy.;
run;

Re: Struggle date format from system date to "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss" format

Tom — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 17:55:57 GMT

You can use PICTURE formats to create many different formats for displaying date, time or datetime in different ways.

But I am curious why you want to use such a confusing format? If you show dates as numbers in MDY (or DMY) order you will confuse half of your audience and risk misinterpretation of ambiguous values like 10/12/2020 .

Why not display your dates in YMD order and avoid that issue?

Re: Struggle date format from system date to "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss" format

ballardw — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:12:57 GMT

@Tom wrote:

You can use PICTURE formats to create many different formats for displaying date, time or datetime in different ways.

But I am curious why you want to use such a confusing format? If you show dates as numbers in MDY (or DMY) order you will confuse half of your audience and risk misinterpretation of ambiguous values like 10/12/2020 .

Why not display your dates in YMD order and avoid that issue?

My guess: That is the Excel / Microsoft datetime default display and OP wants that for familiarity.