topic How to chose earliest date variable from list of date variables? in SAS Procedures

How to chose earliest date variable from list of date variables?

sms1891 — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 15:45:46 GMT

Dear SAS community,

I have list of date variables (date_x, date_y, date_z, etc.) for each Record (ID). So for each ID, I need to pick the earliest date variable from the list of all date variables and create a new date variable (date_new) using the earliest date variable for each ID. Any help with SAS code for creating this new date variable is appreciated.

NOTE: I have only one row per ID with all my date variables recorded as separate variables (single row per ID).

Sample Data Set

ID Date_X Date_Y Date_Z Date_P Date_Q Date_R

Thanks in advance!

How to chose earliest date variable from list of date variables?

sms1891 — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 15:49:04 GMT

Dear SAS community,

NOTE: I have only one row per ID with all my date variables recorded as separate variables (single row per ID).

Sample Data Set

ID Date_X Date_Y Date_Z Date_P Date_Q Date_R

Thanks in advance!

Re: How to chose earliest date variable from list of date variables?

Reeza — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 15:52:48 GMT

Please do not post the same question multiple times.

You can use the MIN() function to get the lowest date and it will ignore missing dates.

min_date = min(date_x, date_y, date_z, ... , date_R);