topic Re: date to character format in SAS Programming

date to character format

me55 — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:51:50 GMT

okay, i am using sas eg and i have an input file. the field i am importing is in YYMMDD format currently from a flat txt file. so what i need to do is put this field into both a date format and a character formatted field (YYMMDD6.) but i cannot seem to get it to come out right. i import it as a date field and then try...

proc sql;
select DATEFIELD, DATEFIELD format=MMDDYY10. AS col_a , PUT(DATEFIELD,8.) as col_b
from DATATABLE;
;

however the output is...

DATEFIELD col_a col_b

170117 01/17/2017 20836

170201 02/01/2017 20851 ...

col b is left aligned like a text but it is clearly changing the original data to another, probably the translated date. but i need it output 170117 as characters, as is with no translation.

Re: date to character format

collinelliot — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 20:03:24 GMT

The value 20836 is Jan 17, 2017, so my question is what the format is on DATEFIELD?

Re: date to character format

ballardw — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 20:12:17 GMT

This

PUT(DATEFIELD,8.) as col_b

tells SAS to display the value as 8 digits.

PUT(DATEFIELD,yymmdd6.) as col_b

would display as date in that format

Re: date to character format

Tosin — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 20:15:52 GMT

Try this....

proc sql;
select DATEFIELD, DATEFIELD format=MMDDYY10. AS col_a , PUT(DATEFIELD,ddmmyyn6.) as col_b
from DATATABLE;
;

Re: date to character format

me55 — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:06:39 GMT

yeah but i dont need a date in return. i need col_b to output the date but in character format. DATEFIELD is imported using YYMMDD6. format. with that field i need it to populate two columns, one is a date field in a different format. that is not an issue however the other column i need it to populate is a character field. so it need to change format or maybe change the way it is imported i guess i am not sure...but i need that one column after imported to fill two columns, a date and a text column. so far every way i have tried to convert that date to char ends up with a sas converted date i believe.

Re: date to character format

ballardw — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 22:57:42 GMT

There are about 30 different SAS supplied date formats. What is your result supposed to look like?

Replace the yymmdd6. in the code below with the format you want though it really sounds like you want yymmdd6.

PUT(DATEFIELD,yymmdd6.) as col_b

would display 17Jan2017 as 170117

data _null_;

   x='17Jan2017'd;
   put x= yymmdd6.;
run;

Re: date to character format

me55 — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 13:06:32 GMT

yes, i can use put to make it look like i want it to but the problem is a date formatted data will not feed into a character formatted column. so it puts me in the same spot which is virtually the same code i was running above.

i will try it again just in case i did something wrong but they key is I NEED THE DATA TO FEED INTO A CHARACTER FORMATTED COLUMN and a date one. i clearly already have the date part solved it is the character part i am having issues with.

Re: date to character format

me55 — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 15:31:31 GMT

okay, so after researching a bit more, i found that YYMMDD10. and YYMMDD6. are in character format so those two would be able to go from a date field directly into a character field. since i have them in ...8. format, i guess that is not character format?! but alas, i got it working.

thanks everyone for the help on this. i appreciate it.

Re: date to character format

Peter_C — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:38:01 GMT

Not just those two
All formats return character strings through a PUT() function

Re: date to character format

Peter_C — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:39:46 GMT

It is just that 8. returns the underlying number which is the way SAS stores numeric values. Only with a date format will you get that date string

Re: date to character format

me55 — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:47:10 GMT

that is the perfect response i was looking for. i understand completely now how that works and why it was not working before. so the function PUT converts the date to characters not that format as a character format. so when i was importing it as YYMMDD6.,

it wouldnt go into the field because it was just a date and if i take even that and use PUT(DATEFIELD,YYMMDD6.) that would allow it to go into a character field.

i really appreciate that repsonse peter_c. now i really understand it.