How to read character values to find the value type (Date and its format)

StickyRoll — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 10:14:22 GMT

I am facing a difficulty whereby I couldn't find a way to read the source character values to determine if it is a date format (possible in YYYYMMDD and MMDDYYYY) or other character format such as car_0001.

Sample as below.

data test;

value1='19990131';

value2='12312006';

value3='car_0001';

value4='blue_001';

run;

As we can see from above, each columns have its own value.

Is there a way that I can identify value 1 as YYYYMMDD, value 2 as MMDDYYYY, or value 3 and 4 as character (nondate)?

I couldn't think of a function to do so.

Re: How to read character values to find the value type (Date and its format)

PaigeMiller — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 11:02:16 GMT

data test;
value='19990131'; output;
value='12312006'; output;
value='car_0001'; output;
value='blue_001'; output;
run;
data want;
    set test;
    date=input(value,anydtdte.);
run;

If the value of DATE is missing, then it is not recognized as a SAS date. This method, using informat ANYDTDTE, is not perfect, it won't give you the proper answer 100% of the time.

topic Re: How to read character values to find the value type (Date and its format) in SAS Programming

How to read character values to find the value type (Date and its format)

Re: How to read character values to find the value type (Date and its format)