topic Re: Time Stamp conversion from character to numeric in SAS Programming

Time Stamp conversion from character to numeric

OzanKirtac — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 20:18:22 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to transform character imported timestamp variable to numeric timestamp variable so that I can change and play around with the variable. When I try to use input function, I keep getting errors.

The original timestap looks like the one below and I want to convert it to a format .

I run this code

data Z11; set Z10;
datadate = input(TIMESTAMP_UTC,8.);
format datadate YYMMDDN8.;
run;

then I keep getting errors:NOTE: Invalid argument to function INPUT at line 1015 column 12

All help is appreciated

Re: Time Stamp conversion from character to numeric

maguiremq — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 20:47:22 GMT

Try this. I specified an INFORMAT to read in the date as numeric, and then I converted it to your desired FORMAT (yymmddn8).

data have;
input timestamp_utc $23.;
datalines;
2010-01-01 03:30:53.85
;
run;

data want;
	set have;
		datadate_nofmt = input(timestamp_utc, yymmdd10.);
		datadate = put(input(timestamp_utc, yymmdd10.), yymmddn8.);
run;

timestamp_utc 	                datadate_nofmt 	datadate
2010-01-01 03:30:53.85 	        18263 	        20100101

Re: Time Stamp conversion from character to numeric

OzanKirtac — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 20:57:14 GMT

thank you for reply.

So will I have to inclued all timestamps in datalines? I have 53000 timestamps. Will I include all of them in the datalines?

Re: Time Stamp conversion from character to numeric

maguiremq — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 21:04:38 GMT

No, you don't have to do the DATALINES statement. That was done for me to reproduce your issue and test whether my solution works. Just run the second chunk of code I provided:

data want;
	set have;
		datadate_nofmt = input(timestamp_utc, yymmdd10.);
		datadate = put(input(timestamp_utc, yymmdd10.), yymmddn8.);
run;

You don't even have to do the 'datadate_nofmt' part. That was done just to show you what's going on.

Re: Time Stamp conversion from character to numeric

OzanKirtac — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 21:07:01 GMT

thank you! cheers!