Date var getting converted to BEST12

[H]

A good ol' SAS dates problem that is stealing hours away from my life.

I have a variable, Datez, which is formatted date9.

I use it in a date step:

Datez2 = Datez;

In the new dataset Datez22 is now BEST12, Length 8, and I just can't seem to get it back into date9. format. 

For example a value gets converted from 02DEC2017 to 21155.788194.

Help is greatly welcomed. I tried put and format as well as rename and the values  are not correctly getting converted. Ideally I just want to rename Datez to Datez2 and not lose its formatting, date9., and drop Datez from the dataset.

[Kurt_Bremser]

When you store a SAS date value (which is a count of days from 1960-01-01) in a variable, you need to also assign it a date format to display correctly. 

[H]

Believable. Do you have suggested code.

Thx

[Kurt_Bremser]

Use the format statement in a data step, or the format= option in a SQL select.

[H]

I tried using a format statement and it didn't provide the dates back for all values and the ones it did provide dates for were incorrect. That is why I am posting here. I seem to be missing something 🙂

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

Post an example dataset with all the values that bother you. Just to illustrate what I told you with the data you posted, see this:

data have;
datez = 21155.788194;
format datez date9.;
run;

data want;
set have;
datez2 = datez;
format datez2 date9.;
put datez2=;
format datez; /* deassigns any formats */
put datez=;
run;

Partial log:

32         data want;
33         set have;
34         datez2 = datez;
35         format datez2 date9.;
36         put datez2=;
37         format datez; /* deassigns any formats */
38         put datez=;
39         run;

datez2=02DEC2017
datez=21155.788194

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@H wrote:

I tried using a format statement and it didn't provide the dates back for all values and the ones it did provide dates for were incorrect. That is why I am posting here. I seem to be missing something 🙂

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[H]

@Kurt_Bremser 

Yes, your code snippet works and is a better option (IMHO) since it doesn't require a second data step.  Of note, it turns the original variable's value into a number, but that is moot, since I have that variable in a drop statement with in the statement, when putting it into production.

Thank you.

[H]

My weak hack was:

proc datasets nolist lib=work;
	modify MRSA_Pred_second;
	rename datez = datez2;
run;

But this is less than ideal in my mind.

[Reeza]

If you have decimal values, I'm suspecting a sas datetime, not a date. 

Regardless, apply formats is trivial. 

in a data step:

data have;
set have;

format date date9.;
run;

or via proc datasets

proc datasets lib=work nodetails nolist;
modify have;
format date date9.;
run;quit;

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@H wrote:

A good ol' SAS dates problem that is stealing hours away from my life.

I have a variable, Datez, which is formatted date9.

I use it in a date step:

Datez2 = Datez;

In the new dataset Datez22 is now BEST12, Length 8, and I just can't seem to get it back into date9. format. 

For example a value gets converted from 02DEC2017 to 21155.788194.

Help is greatly welcomed. I tried put and format as well as rename and the values  are not correctly getting converted. Ideally I just want to rename Datez to Datez2 and not lose its formatting, date9., and drop Datez from the dataset.

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