Date type return an 'A'

[miss2223]

Hi 

I got a dataset with a date type (MRCL_DATE_START), but the result is an 'A' rather than a date format? I am trying to code up to identify the students with 'A' from this table. I tried where MRCL_DATE_START = 'A', but obviously doesnt work, as this is a date type and A is a string. Please help. 

[Tom · Accepted solution]

That is how most formats will display the special missing value of .A.

You could test if the value is .A.

MRCL_DATE_START = .a

Or just test if it is missing, which will also find any observations that contain one of the 27 other possible numeric missing values.

missing(MRCL_DATE_START)