importing from excel to SAS (dates)

[ilikesas]

Hi,

I have an excel file with a date column that looks something like this:

date
text
12/02/2010
11/11/2011

The format is general and not in date

my importing procedure is the following:

PROC IMPORT OUT= board1

            DATAFILE= " K:\thesis comp bankruptcy\board1.xlsx"

            DBMS= EXCEL REPLACE;

    sheet = "Sheet1";

     GETNAMES=YES;

     MIXED=NO;

     SCANTEXT=YES;

     USEDATE=YES;

     SCANTIME=YES;

RUN;

What I would like to know is how to make such that when I import the file the dates are in mmddyy10. form.

Thank you

[Kurt_Bremser]

Looks like those columns are stored as text in Excel. Either make sure that dates are stored as Excel dates and have a suitable format, or save the spreadsheet as a .csv file and write a suitable data step for import.

[RW9]

Should really make a sticky on topic Excel plus import.  Totally agree, Excel is not a data transfer format.  Save to CSV and use a datastep, don't let proc export/import guess what you want to do etc.