topic Re: Force Today() to a specific date? in SAS Programming

Force Today() to a specific date?

Rachie — Tue, 18 May 2021 04:18:28 GMT

Hi there

I have a batch job that I need to re-run which uses the Today() function throughout the code. I appreciate that I can go and change these references and also for future use adapt the program so the Today() is used once at the start of the program to create a macro variable that is referenced in the rest of the code.

However, is it also possible to force the Today() to be a specific date value within a SAS session instead of defaulting to todays date?

Thank you

Re: Force Today() to a specific date?

SASKiwi — Tue, 18 May 2021 04:30:06 GMT

If you want a specific date then you wouldn't use the TODAY function at all.

A good approach is to assign the program run date to a macro variable like so:

*%let Run_Date         = 18May2021;
%let Run_Date          = %sysfunc(today(), date9.);

Then use the macro variable throughout your code. If you want a specific date then uncomment the specific date assignment and comment the TODAY statement.

If you are running a batch job then you can pass in the required date in as a job parameter and avoid any coding changes. How you do that would depend on how you are scheduling the job.

Re: Force Today() to a specific date?

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 18 May 2021 05:34:21 GMT

TODAY() works from the system clock. Changing that would have grave consequences.
Change the calls to macro variables.

Re: Force Today() to a specific date?

PaigeMiller — Tue, 18 May 2021 10:50:06 GMT

@Rachie wrote:

However, is it also possible to force the Today() to be a specific date value within a SAS session instead of defaulting to todays date?

Is this what you want?

%let today = %sysevalf('01MAY2021'd);

Re: Force Today() to a specific date?

Sajid01 — Tue, 18 May 2021 13:26:44 GMT

Hello @Rachie
As you are running a batch process you can pass a date as a parameter if you want to use a date other today. . For example

Yourpath_to_sas/SAS.EXE -SYSPARM "01JAN2012"

Now in the code you can have something like this

%if &sysparam=' ' %then %do;
%let Run_Date          = %sysfunc(today(), date9.);
%end;
%else %do
%let Run_Date          = "&sysparam"d;
%end;

Re: Force Today() to a specific date?

Reeza — Tue, 18 May 2021 13:43:27 GMT

Something like this:

%let override_date = %sysfunc(mdy(1, 1, 2021));
%let today = %sysfunc(coalescec(&override_date., %sysfunc(today())));

%put &today;

%let override_date =;
%let today = %sysfunc(coalescec(&override_date., %sysfunc(today())));
%put &today;

@Rachie wrote:

Hi there

I have a batch job that I need to re-run which uses the Today() function throughout the code. I appreciate that I can go and change these references and also for future use adapt the program so the Today() is used once at the start of the program to create a macro variable that is referenced in the rest of the code.

However, is it also possible to force the Today() to be a specific date value within a SAS session instead of defaulting to todays date?

Thank you