topic Re: Looking for a date format in SAS Programming

Looking for a date format

SASdevAnneMarie — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:30:21 GMT

Hello Experts,

Do you know please a date format for this presetation of date : 20230213

Thank you !

Re: Looking for a date format

Reeza — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:34:37 GMT

YYMMDDN8.

https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/leforinforref/p0iptsg6780kzfn1k5f0b8s7k7dq.htm

@SASdevAnneMarie wrote:

Hello Experts,

Do you know please a date format for this presetation of date : 20230213

Thank you !

Re: Looking for a date format

SASdevAnneMarie — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:40:19 GMT

Sorry, I did not specify, I would like to get it as macro variable.

Re: Looking for a date format

Reeza — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:41:53 GMT

@SASdevAnneMarie wrote:

Sorry, I did not specify, I would like to get it as macro variable.

You need to provide more detail. Attempting to do some mind reading, maybe this is what you're looking for:

%let current_date = %sysfunc(today(), yymmddn8.);
%put &current_date.;

Re: Looking for a date format

MayurJadhav — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:43:37 GMT

You can use following format to get date in 20230213

yymmdd8.

Here is one simple example:

data _null_;
	format dt yymmddn8.;
	dt=today();
put dt=;
run;

output:

dt=20230213

Re: Looking for a date format

SASdevAnneMarie — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:46:56 GMT

Thank you !

Re: Looking for a date format

ballardw — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 18:29:31 GMT

@SASdevAnneMarie wrote:

Sorry, I did not specify, I would like to get it as macro variable.

HOW do you expect to use that macro variable?

Quite often formatting a date into a value other than the native value is a poor choice as you can't use the text of a macro variable containing 20130213 to match the value of an actual date variable in a SAS data set.

A recent example of using a formatted macro variable date that fails because of the formatting: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Intck-does-not-give-the-desired-output/m-p/858470#M339187

Re: Looking for a date format

PaigeMiller — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 17:50:12 GMT

@SASdevAnneMarie wrote:

Sorry, I did not specify, I would like to get it as macro variable.

Maxim 28: Macro variables should not be formatted. If you are going to perform arithmetic or Boolean logic on a macro variable, unformatted is best. The one exception: if you are going to use the macro variable in a label, title or filename, then it probably should be formatted.