topic Re: Converting text into date in SAS Programming

Converting text into date

Stan_G — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:19:27 GMT

Hi,

I am relatively new at this and always find this tricky i have fields that are like 1/7/2011 12/11/2013 etc, and they are text, how do i turn these into proper sas dates.

Thanking in advance,

Stan

Re: Converting text into date

Scott_Mitchell — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:27:53 GMT

Are these dates in text files or a sas dataset?

Re: Converting text into date

slchen — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:30:49 GMT

data _null_;

a='1/7/2011';

b=input(put(a,8.),mmddyy10.);

put b/b=mmddyy10.;

run;

Re: Converting text into date

RW9 — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:58:16 GMT

Per slchen you would use the input function to convert text strings into numeric variables (which are what date/time variables are in SAS). The input requires you to specify the format of the data, length. So in your example your date value is 10 characters, mm/dd/yyyy, spaces are interpreted as 0. So the format to read this in would be mmddyy10. If you have only a two digit year then: mm/dd/yy, so the format is mmddyy8. The input reads in the text string and converts it to numeric SAS date which can have a format applied to it to show the date representation - otherwise you will just see a number. The reverse of course is put which takes a numeric and puts it into a character string.

Re: Converting text into date

Stan_G — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:54:29 GMT

These are variables within a dataset, I've tried this:

data _null_;

a='1/7/2011';

b=input(put(a,8.),mmddyy10.);

put b/b=mmddyy10.;

run;

but that dont seem to work, any other suggestions will be greatly apreciated.

Many thanks,

Stan

Re: Converting text into date

slchen — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:14:46 GMT

data have;

input date :$10.;

_date=input(strip(date),mmddyy10.);

format _date mmddyy10.;

cards;

1/7/2011

2/19/2011

10/13/2012

12/11/2013

;

run;

Re: Converting text into date

Fugue — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:40:30 GMT

Kinda looks like the same question as the just-posted https://communities.sas.com/message/215994#215994

Re: Converting text into date

Stan_G — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:47:15 GMT

sorry mate how would you do the same on the existing data set rather than the one you have created?

Many thanks,

stan

Re: Converting text into date

slchen — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 01:08:15 GMT

data want;

set have;

_date=input(strip(date),mmddyy10.);

format _date mmddyy10.;

run;

Re: Converting text into date

Stan_G — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 03:16:39 GMT

I found the solution here it is:

data want;

set have;

new_date = input (date,ddmmyy10.) ;

format new_date ddmmyy10. ;

put _all_ ;

run;

Re: Converting text into date

Stan_G — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 03:18:44 GMT

the strip function didnt seem to work, aim on sas 9.2

Re: Converting text into date

RichardinOz — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 10:52:11 GMT

If strip() is not available use trim(left(...))

Richard