topic Convert date to character string in SAS Programming

Convert date to character string

PriyaL — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 12:03:27 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to find a way to convert a date into a like for like character string to I can merge in data using the date as a variable.

For example

Reference	Date	date2
893746	31MAR2002:00:00:00.000	Mar-02

Where date2 is the datepart(date) formatted using monyy5.

I would like to make a variable date3 that is a character replica of date2 as I don't want to deal with days in the merge.

Does anyone know an easy way to do this?

Thanks.

Astounding — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 12:22:33 GMT

A reasonable way:

length date3 $ 3;

date3 = put(date2, monyy5.);

Because of the LENGTH statement, there is only room to store the first 3 characters.

PriyaL — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 13:00:07 GMT

The first 3 characters will only display the month whereas I need the month and year.

Astounding — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 13:40:51 GMT

OK, then give DATE3 a length of $5 instead of $3.