https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/calculating-earliest-among-a-group-of-dates/m-p/15599#M2750 Dates are numbers, so use the min function in a data step.....<BR /> <BR /> data a; <BR /> set b; <BR /> min_date=min(of date1-date4); <BR /> format min_date date8.; <BR /> run; Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:20:57 GMT Jay 2009-04-06T16:20:57Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/calculating-earliest-among-a-group-of-dates/m-p/15598#M2749 Hi All,<BR /> <BR /> In a sas dataset, I have 4 different dates (as 4 columns), need to find the earliest date among those per observation. <BR /> Is there any better way to handle this (apart from recursive multiple if then else statements).Thanks.<BR /> <BR /> Kumar. Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:45:24 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/calculating-earliest-among-a-group-of-dates/m-p/15598#M2749 deleted_user 2009-04-06T15:45:24Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/calculating-earliest-among-a-group-of-dates/m-p/15599#M2750 Dates are numbers, so use the min function in a data step.....<BR /> <BR /> data a; <BR /> set b; <BR /> min_date=min(of date1-date4); <BR /> format min_date date8.; <BR /> run; Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:20:57 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/calculating-earliest-among-a-group-of-dates/m-p/15599#M2750 Jay 2009-04-06T16:20:57Z