topic convert char to date in SAS Programming

convert char to date

dennis_oz — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 04:23:44 GMT

Hi all,

Please advice to convert the following to date .

Thanks in Advance .

data have;
input DateToConvert $30.;
datalines;
January 1, 2020
January 1, 2020
January 1, 2020
run;

Re: convert char to date

jimbarbour — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 04:59:58 GMT

@dennis_oz,

You can go straight to the data that you want as a part of the Input process. To wit:

data WANT;
	INFILE		Datalines;
	INFORMAT	Input_Date	ANYDTDTE30.;
	FORMAT		Input_Date	DATE11.;
	LENGTH		Input_Date	8.;
	INPUT		Input_Date	&;
datalines;
January 1, 2020
February 28, 2020
September 21, 2020
November 15, 2020
;
run;

Results:

The trick here is the ampersand (&) on the Input statement. The ampersand here tells SAS to treat a single space as part of the data. Two spaces are required to separate input fields. Absent the ampersand, SAS will stop at the first blank, and will treat "January 1, 2020" as three separate fields.

I then use an Informat, ANYDTDTE which is a sort of "Jack-of-All-Trades" input date format. If it can be made sense of in terms of a date, SAS will do it. The one caveat with ANYDTDTE is that you have to be aware of something like 12-08-2020. In some localities, 12-08-2020 represents December 8th, and in others August 12th. How it is interpreted through ANYDTDTE is determined by your SAS options.

Lastly, I formatted the date as DATE11, but that format is arbitrary. Any valid SAS date will work fine for display purposes so long as it suits your needs.

Hope that helps,

Jim

Re: convert char to date

jimbarbour — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 23:56:09 GMT

Oh, and @dennis_oz,

If you're in a situation where you really do need to take a character date from a SAS data set (instead of taking it from a text file as I did above), the approach is basically the same. Again, I'm going to use ANYDTDTE30. as my informat but this time instead of an Input statement I will use the Input function:

data have;
	input DateToConvert $30.;
	datalines;
January 1, 2020
February 28, 2020
September 21, 2020
November 15, 2020
;
run;

DATA	Want_2;
	SET	Have;
	FORMAT		SAS_Date	DATE11.;
	SAS_Date	=	INPUT(DateToConvert, ANYDTDTE30.);
RUN;

Results:

Notice the icon on the "SAS_Date" variable. SAS does indeed regard this variable as a date.

I hope one or the other of the above can serve as a solution for what you need.

Jim