forcing date into character

[tellmeaboutityo]

Hello,

I'm trying to force a date variable into a character variable.  This doesn't work, which makes me sad:

data want; set have;

format originaldate mmddyyd10.;
length chardate $9;
chardate = originaldate;

run;

Below does work, but there has to be an easier way? 

data want; set have;

format originaldate mmddyyd10.;

originaldate = datepart(originaldate);
year = year(originaldate);
day = day(originaldate);
month = month(originaldate);

length month_c $5;

if month = 1 then month_c = '-Jan-';
if month = 2 then month _c = '-Feb-';
if month = 3 then month _c = '-Mar-';
if month = 4 then month _c = '-Apr-';
if month = 5 then month _c = '-May-';
if month = 6 then month _c = '-Jun-';
if month = 7 then month _c = '-Jul-';
if month = 8 then month _c = '-Aug-';
if month = 9 then month _c = '-Sep-';
if month = 10 then month _c = '-Oct-';
if month = 11 then month _c = '-Nov-';
if month = 12 then month _c = '-Dec-';
length chardate $9;

chardate = catt(day, month_c, year);

run; 

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

char_date = put(originalDate, mmddyy10.);

SAS does not have a format for DD-MON-YYYY if that's the format you want, I would suggest creating your own format and combining it. 

Either way your code could be simplified to:

char_date = CATX('-', put(day(originalDate), z2.), put(originalDate, monname3.), put(year(originalDate), 4.));

---

@tellmeaboutityo wrote:

Hello,

I'm trying to force a date variable into a character variable.  This doesn't work, which makes me sad:

data want; set have;

format originaldate mmddyyd10.;
length chardate $9;
chardate = originaldate;

run;

Below does work, but there has to be an easier way? 

data want; set have;

format originaldate mmddyyd10.;

originaldate = datepart(degconfdate);
year = year(originaldate);
day = day(originaldate);
month = month(originaldate);

if month = 1 then month_c = '-Jan-';
if month = 2 then month _c = '-Feb-';
if month = 3 then month _c = '-Mar-';
if month = 4 then month _c = '-Apr-';
if month = 5 then month _c = '-May-';
if month = 6 then month _c = '-Jun-';
if month = 7 then month _c = '-Jul-';
if month = 8 then month _c = '-Aug-';
if month = 9 then month _c = '-Sep-';
if month = 10 then month _c = '-Oct-';
if month = 11 then month _c = '-Nov-';
if month = 12 then month _c = '-Dec-';
length chardate $9;

chardate = catt(day, month_c, year);

run; 

---

[tellmeaboutityo]

Reeza-- If you keep being so awesome, I'm going to owe you a martini!

Astounding-- I didn't specify a result because I'm outputting multiple formats and wanted a general solution.  Thanks for the help, though! 

[Astounding]

You didn't actually specify what you want the result to look like.  Here's a simple conversion:

data want;

set have;

chardate = put( datepart(degconfdate), date9.);

run;

If you really want dashes in between, switch to:

chardate = put( datepart(degconfdate), date11.);