Error when creatin a yymm8. variable from date

[Ahmad]

hi i am trying to create a year-month (e.g  2006-01) variable from my daily date variable using the command MONTH=put(date,yymmd8.),

however it is giving me the error

     877:9

NOTE: Invalid numeric data, ' 2006-01' , at line 877 column 9.

DATE=16803 alhspr=. spread=. year=2006 month=. _ERROR_=1 _N_=2

NOTE: Invalid numeric data, ' 2006-01' , at line 877 column 9

I have used this method earlier but i dont know y sas is constantly giving me this  error now.

Any help would be highly appreciated

Thanks

[Tom · Accepted solution]

You have previously defined MONTH as a numeric variable. So SAS cannot figure out how to convert '2006-01' into a number to stick into your numeric variable.  The code below illustrates the problem.

data _null_;

  length num 8 char $7 ;

  char = put('01JAN2006'd,yymmd7.);

  num = put('01JAN2006'd,yymmd7.);

run;

[Ahmad]

thanks tom it was silly of me