Converting date to Character

[Benn]

Hi Guys,

I have been trying to converting a date to a string of characters using the PUT function:

DATA WANT;

SET HAVE;

DATENEW=PUT(DATE, $8.);

RUN;

Currently my date is in the YYYYMMDD format. And the output of this code transformed the date into numbers:

19860108 becomes 9504

19860109 becomes 9505

So on and so forth. I think the output transformed the YYYYMMDD format into the SAS date format where 19600101 is zero.

How can I transform the YYYYMMDD into characters while keeping exactly what I see previously?

Thanks guys!

[art297 · Accepted solution]

Does this do what you want?:

DATA WANT;

  SET HAVE;

  DATENEW=PUT(DATE, yymmddn8.);

RUN;

[Astounding]

You also have the alternative of leaving the data exactly as is.  When printing, you can always apply a format so you can view it in a more familiar form.  That also gives you flexibility of selecting the format you want for each report.  If you would like to assign a default format, you can add the FORMAT statement in the DATA step.