Format String with dashes and different formats to date

[altijani]

Greetings Community,

I have this text variable that captures the dates

03/15/2015

3/17/2016

Some with leading zeros (for Jan to Sep), and some without the leading zeros. I need to convert it into a date format.

I tried this code:

Correct_date = input(text_date,ddmmyy10.) ;

format Correct_date YYMMDD10.;

I received this error:

NOTE: Invalid argument to function INPUT at line 30 column 15.

[PeterClemmensen]

You almost have it. You have to use the MMDDYY10. informat and not the DDMMYY10. Like this 

data have;
text_date="03/15/2015";output;
text_date="3/17/2016";output;
run;

data want;
   set have;
   Correct_date = input(text_date,mmddyy10.);
   format Correct_date mmddyy10.;
run;

[altijani]

Thank you draycut for the code. I found where the problem is. I have some dates with month and year, but that have 0 for the day as follows:

05/0/2015

11/0/2016

The converted dates with your code are missings. I need to convert them to the beginning of the month, if the day is 0 as follows:

05/01/2015

11/01/2016

Any idea how that can be done?

Thanks! 

[PeterClemmensen · Accepted solution]

Sure thing 🙂

data have;
text_date="03/15/2015";output;
text_date="3/17/2016";output;
text_date="05/0/2015";output;
text_date="11/0/2016";output;
run;

data want;
   set have;
   text_date=tranwrd(text_date, '/0/', '/1/');
   Correct_date = input(text_date,mmddyy10.);
   format Correct_date mmddyy10.;
run;