Date variable

[shami]

I have the following date variable:

Collection_date

1/1/2023 5:27:00 PM

2/2/2023 2:40:00 PM

3/4/2023 12:02:00 PM

4/6/2023 11:59:00 AM

And I would like to convert it or create a new date variable and have it in the following format:

Date

01Jan2023

02Feb2023
04Mar2023

Kindly help with the appropriate code for this.

[Tom · Accepted solution]

Run PROC CONTENTS on your existing dataset. Is the current variable NUMERIC or CHARACTER?  Does it have a FORMAT attached to it?

If it is NUMERIC then you have a DATETIME value.  You could just change the format attached to the variable to have it print in that style.

format old dtdate9.;

Or you can use the DATEPART() function to convert it to a DATE value.  Then you could attach the DATE9. format to it so it will print in the style you show.

new=datepart(old);
format new date9.;

Since both DATETIME and DATE values are stored as NUMERIC variables you could replace the values of the original variable instead.

old=datepart(old);
format old date9.;

If it is CHARACTER then you can use the INPUT() function with the MMDDYY informat to convert it to a DATE value.  Note that your strings seem to using inconsistent length for the date part.  So you will want to use SCAN() to pull out just the first word from the string.

new=input(scan(old,1,' '),mmddyy10.);
format new date9.;

 Since DATE values are numeric you will need to make a NEW variable.  If you wanted to store it back into the old variable you would need to add a PUT() function call to generate a character string.

old=put(input(scan(old,1,' '),mmddyy10.),date9.);