Formatting a data element when using CATS

[titanbob]

I'm trying to concatenate 4 data elements together to create a unique ID, the last data element is a date. When I use the CATS function, it is converting the date into the numeric equivalent and that's not what I want. I want the actual date 

cats(a.agreement_type,a.customer_number,a.trade_number,a.maturity_date). What do I need to do for the date?

Thanks

[ballardw]

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@titanbob wrote:

I'm trying to concatenate 4 data elements together to create a unique ID, the last data element is a date. When I use the CATS function, it is converting the date into the numeric equivalent and that's not what I want. I want the actual date 

cats(a.agreement_type,a.customer_number,a.trade_number,a.maturity_date). What do I need to do for the date?

Thanks

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Possibly something like

cats(a.agreement_type,a.customer_number,a.trade_number, put(a.maturity_date, date9.) ).

if you want the date to appear like 20OCT2018 if the value is an actual SAS date value. Pick the format you want in place of date9 .

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Yeah, this is a common gotcha. SAS will convert numeric using the BEST format which puts it in as a number, not the date. You need to use PUT() to convert it to the format desired as shown in BallardW code.

[titanbob]

Thanks for the help, really appreciate it!!!