DateTime Calculations

[Malathi13]

Hi All,

I have trouble calculating with SAS Datetime all the time. Please provide me your suggestions on this problem, I really appreciate all for helping many beginners with SAS. I have a dataset with two columns with datetimes and some demographic variables (table below): both incident_es and incident_ei are character variables. I want to calculate number of observations within three hours of incident_es. Can somebody help me with this please?

Thank you,

M

gender	age	incident_es	incident_ei
M	30	7/5/2019 1:07	05JUL19:01:45:00
M	65	7/7/2019 20:37	07JUL19:21:14:00
M	25	7/20/2019 23:01	20JUL19:23:24:00
F	30	8/10/2019 15:41	10AUG19:16:34:00
M	64	9/12/2019 17:50	12SEP19:18:30:00
M	55	7/29/2019 13:27	29JUL19:14:10:00
M	39	9/22/2019 0:46	22SEP19:01:18:00
F	56	9/1/2019 19:35	01SEP19:20:00:00
F	56	8/25/2019 0:06	25AUG19:00:30:00
F	47	7/12/2019 18:33	12JUL19:18:52:00
F	41	8/15/2019 0:37	15AUG19:00:56:00
F	37	7/28/2019 18:52	28JUL19:19:15:00
F	37	8/8/2019 12:08	08AUG19:12:34:00

[JeffMaggio]

I had to really manipulate the character string in the first date time column in the where clause, but I believe this works:

data have;
length incident_es $20 incident_ei $20;
gender='M'; age=30;	incident_es='7/5/2019 1:07'; incident_ei='05JUL19:01:45:00'; output;
gender='M'; age=65;	incident_es='7/7/2019 20:37';	incident_ei='07JUL19:21:14:00'; output;
gender='M'; age=25;	incident_es='7/20/2019 23:01';	incident_ei='20JUL19:23:24:00'; output;
gender='F'; age=30;	incident_es='8/10/2019 15:41';	incident_ei='10AUG19:16:34:00'; output;
gender='M'; age=64;	incident_es='9/12/2019 17:50';	incident_ei='12SEP19:18:30:00'; output;
gender='M'; age=55;	incident_es='7/29/2019 13:27';	incident_ei='29JUL19:14:10:00'; output; 
gender='M';	age=39;	incident_es='9/22/2019 0:46';	incident_ei='22SEP19:01:18:00'; output;
gender='F';	age=56;	incident_es='9/1/2019 19:35';	incident_ei='01SEP19:20:00:00'; output;
gender='F';	age=56;	incident_es='8/25/2019 0:06';	incident_ei='25AUG19:00:30:00'; output;
gender='F';	age=47;	incident_es='7/12/2019 18:33';	incident_ei='12JUL19:18:52:00'; output;
gender='F';	age=41;	incident_es='8/15/2019 0:37';	incident_ei='15AUG19:00:56:00'; output;
gender='F';	age=37;	incident_es='7/28/2019 18:52';	incident_ei='28JUL19:19:15:00'; output;
gender='F';	age=37;	incident_es='8/8/2019 12:08';	incident_ei='08AUG19:12:34:00'; output;


run;

proc sql;
select count(*) as count 
from have
where abs(input(put(input(substr(incident_es,1,index(incident_es,' ')-1),mmddyy10.),date7.)||':'||substr(incident_es,index(incident_es,' ')+1),datetime.) - input(incident_ei,datetime.))/60/60 < 3;
quit;

I'm sure someone else can figure out a much cleaner way to get SAS to recognize the datetime values in the first column. 

[Malathi13]

Hi @JeffMaggio, 

I can't do the data manipulation in the dataset as I have 100,000 observations in my dataset. It is impossible to manipulate at the data step.

I will try other options and let you all know!

Thank you,

M

[Reeza]

Why cannot you not do the data manipulation? The code is the same regardless if it's 10 or 100,000 rows. The 'have' step is to create raw data from your data set but you can just use your actual data, not the HAVE data set.

[Reeza]

Questions/things to consider:

• There are no dates within 3 hours of each other in your data set based on the incident_ES variable, there are no dates on the same day at all. 
• Is the rule within three hours of incident_es or is it within three hours of incident_ei? 
• Is the incident_ei variable relevant?
• Is it within three hours in either direction or just three hours after or before?

You can convert your character variable to datetime using the following:

incident_ei_dt = input(incident_ei, anydtdtm.);

---

@Malathi13 wrote:

Hi All,

I have trouble calculating with SAS Datetime all the time. Please provide me your suggestions on this problem, I really appreciate all for helping many beginners with SAS. I have a dataset with two columns with datetimes and some demographic variables (table below): both incident_es and incident_ei are character variables. I want to calculate number of observations within three hours of incident_es. Can somebody help me with this please?

Thank you,

M

gender	age	incident_es	incident_ei
M	30	7/5/2019 1:07	05JUL19:01:45:00
M	65	7/7/2019 20:37	07JUL19:21:14:00
M	25	7/20/2019 23:01	20JUL19:23:24:00
F	30	8/10/2019 15:41	10AUG19:16:34:00
M	64	9/12/2019 17:50	12SEP19:18:30:00
M	55	7/29/2019 13:27	29JUL19:14:10:00
M	39	9/22/2019 0:46	22SEP19:01:18:00
F	56	9/1/2019 19:35	01SEP19:20:00:00
F	56	8/25/2019 0:06	25AUG19:00:30:00
F	47	7/12/2019 18:33	12JUL19:18:52:00
F	41	8/15/2019 0:37	15AUG19:00:56:00
F	37	7/28/2019 18:52	28JUL19:19:15:00
F	37	8/8/2019 12:08	08AUG19:12:34:00

---

[Doc_Duke]

To add to Reeza's comments, I'd suggest reading

https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lrcon&docsetTarget=n0q9ylcaccjgjrn19hvqnd9cte8p.htm&docsetVe...

for thorough coverage of the concepts.

[ErikLund_Jensen]

Hi @Malathi13 

A warning: Following @Reeza suggestion and reading the character datetime values with the informat anydtdtm. can give unexpected results. Data seems to be OK, but the conversion gets dates and months wrong in some cases. See what happens to the two datetime strings from your input in the following example:

data have;
	length incident_es $22;
	incident_es='7/5/2019 1:07'; output;
	incident_es='7/20/2019 23:01'; output;
run;

data want; set have;
	dt = input(incident_es,anydtdtm.);
	put incident_es ' ' @20 dt datetime.;
run;

The result is:

7/5/2019 1:07      07MAY19:01:07:00
7/20/2019 23:01  20JUL19:23:01:00

First observation is read as ddmmyyyy, and the second as mmddyyyy. An error like that is difficult to spot, because all observations have a valid datatime, and you might end up with a wrong analysis based on bad data in your next paper.

[Tom]

Note that the ANYDTxxx informats are not necessarily wrong. But you do need to know how they work since they are going to GUESS how to interpret the strings.  

3035  data want; set have;
3036  	dt = input(incident_es,anydtdtm.);
3037  	put incident_es ' ' @20 dt datetime.;
3038  run;

7/5/2019 1:07      05JUL19:01:07:00
7/20/2019 23:01    20JUL19:23:01:00

In your example the issue is that your current locale setting is one that tells the informats that they should prefer DMY order over MDY order when the values are ambiguous. That is why I tell people to always use DATE or YYMMDD formats for dates.  This will eliminate the confusion.

[ErikLund_Jensen]

Hi @Tom 

I also tell people that they should never depend on SAS guessing anything, like using any-whatever informats or let proc import determine column types.

I wasn't aware of the the consequence of the locale setting for the behaviour of the anydtdte-informat, until I once i found myself  in an embarassing situation  when sombody in the audience could prove that my presentation was based on garbled data. But it seems to be a problem limited to european SAS users reading ddmmyy-dates.

[Malathi13]

Hi All,
thank you so much for your wonderful suggestions. I was looking for something within three hours of incident_es. I will try your suggestions and let you know. Sorry for the late reply and also I tried anydttm in the input function, didn't work.

Thank you,
Malathi13