topic Converting Character Date to Numeric Date in SAS Programming

Converting Character Date to Numeric Date

jjadall1 — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 01:27:43 GMT

Hello SAS Supoort Communities,

I would like to convert the additional_signature_date_1 variable in the attached SAS dataset from a character variable to a numeric variable (a numeric SAS date). I used the following code:

data audit.a2011p1;

set audit.a2011p;

date_var = input(additional_signature_date_1,date9.);

format date_var date9.;

run;

After running this, the date_var variable has a missing value (a dot) for each observation. What should I change in my code?

God bless, best regards, and thanks so much,
Jadallah

Re: Converting Character Date to Numeric Date

ShiroAmada — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 01:56:34 GMT

Looking at obs=14 for the variable additional_signature_date_1='8/25/2011' - This is NOT date9. informat but mmddyy10 informat.

Try this....

data audit.a2011p1;
set audit.a2011p;
date_var = input(additional_signature_date_1,mmddyy10.);
format date_var date9.;
run;

Always check your log, WARNING messages must be there or _ERROR_.

Hope this helps.

Re: Converting Character Date to Numeric Date

Tom — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 01:57:41 GMT

I am not going to download a zip file. Can you post some of the values of the charcter variable? Make sure to check whether the values have leading spaces. For example you could run this data step to print the first 10 non-missing values.

data _null_;
  set audit.a2011p;
  where not missing(additional_signature_date_1);
  put additional_signature_date_1 $quote. ;
  if _n_ >= 10 then stop;
run;

Re: Converting Character Date to Numeric Date

jjadall1 — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 02:05:50 GMT

God bless you and your family! Thank you so much! I appreciate it! It worked!

Re: Converting Character Date to Numeric Date

ShiroAmada — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 02:08:58 GMT

Amen PTLA (Praise The Lord Almighty).

You have a blessed day and coming weekend jjadall1