topic Re: Setting a New Variable to a Another Variable and Keep DateTime Format in SAS Programming

Setting a New Variable to a Another Variable and Keep DateTime Format

MikeXue — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 20:26:03 GMT

Hello All,

I'm trying to create a new variable to set to another datetime variable.

Data End_Date_Time ;
set IN_BOTH;
A_ETM_&ADAMEAETIME. = A_&ADAMEAETIME.;
run;

The original variable A_&ADAMEAETIME has the following value format:

However, my new variable A_ETM_&ADAMEAETIME as the following format:

What do I do need to in order to keep the formatting of the original variable in my new variable? Also, I do not want to rename the variable due to circumstances of the data and overlapping that can occur. So creating a new variable is a must.

Thanks for your help in advance!

Mike

Re: Setting a New Variable to a Another Variable and Keep DateTime Format

Kurt_Bremser — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 23:04:50 GMT

Use a FORMAT or ATTRIB statement to assign the wanted format to the new variable.

Re: Setting a New Variable to a Another Variable and Keep DateTime Format

Patrick — Sun, 05 Dec 2021 09:30:18 GMT

The easiest way is to just define a format for the new variable. In below code that's option 1.

If you want to create the new variable using exactly the attributes of another variable without having to define them explicitly then option 2 provides an approach for this.

data have;
  a_etm=datetime();
  format a_etm datetime.;
run;

/* option 1 */
data want1;
  set have;
  format new_var datetime.;
  new_var=mapping;
run;

/* option 2 */
data mapping;
  stop;
  set have(keep=a_etm);
  rename a_etm=new_var;
run;

data want;
  set have;
  if 0 then set mapping;
  new_var=a_etm;
run;

Re: Setting a New Variable to a Another Variable and Keep DateTime Format

PaigeMiller — Sun, 05 Dec 2021 11:58:17 GMT

You don't need to create a new SAS data set for this. Just put the FORMAT statement in the same data step that creates the variable.

Or if the dataset containing this new variable (unformatted) already exists, just modify the metadata by using PROC DATASETS so that this new variable has the desired format.

proc datasets library=work nolist;
    modify End_Date_Time;
    format A_ETM_&ADAMEAETIME datetime16.;
run; quit;