How to convert character format yyyymmdd to a date format ?

[Neil_C]

I have one variable 'birthd' that shows value in character format (e.g. 19890629). I want to convert that into a date variable mmddyy in the same file work.test.

Attached is the below code - the variable date_new shows up as numeric instead of date format.

Much help appreciated.

Thanks,

Neil.

WORK.merged;

WORK.merged_COPY;

date_new = input(birthd, yymmdd8.);

format date_new date10.;

run;

[Patrick · Accepted solution]

It works for me.

A SAS date value gets stored in a numeric variable as number of days since 01Jan1960 with a format attached.

data test;

  birthd='19890629';

  date_new = input(birthd, yymmdd8.);

  format date_new date10.;

run;

[Reeza]

What do you mean by numeric rather than date format?

SAS has only two variable types, numbers and characters and a "date" variable is a number with a date format, specifically the number of days from Jan 1, 1960.

[Tom]

If you want the dates to display in month,day, year format then use a format that will do that.  For example for today (06JAN2014)  to display as 06012014 you would use:

format date_new mmddyyn8.;