topic Numeric data in SAS Procedures

Numeric data

ren2010 — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:52:11 GMT

Hi,

I have a dataset with a numeric variable with informat and format of 9.This numeric field has date value as below:

date_var

20051020

I tried to read in the variable in a Data step and change the format of date_var to mmddyy10. and created the dataset,but when I opened the dataset the value of date_var is showing in bestw format.

ie in my output dataset I am seeing the value of date_var as 20051020 instead of 10/20/2005.

I have also noticed in the log that there was a message when I opened the output dataset ,ie : Error in Format,bestw used instead.

Any idea why this is happening?

Please help.

Thanks in advance.

Numeric data

art297 — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:59:13 GMT

It sounds like you read your dates as numbers. Thus, you have to use the input and put functions to convert them to date values. E.g.:

data have;

input date_var;

cards;

20051020

;

data want;

set have;

format date_var mmddyy10.;

date_var=input(put(date_var,z8.),yymmdd8.);

run;

Numeric data

ren2010 — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:11:13 GMT

Thanks Art297.