Abbreviated Month Year format that will work in English and French (e.g. Feb19 and Féb19)

[ghosh]

Is there a way to format date in the abbreviated month-year format that will work in English and French?

I am creating a bilingual English-French report with tables and graphs. I have to show the date in mmmyy  format.    I can get this using  the format monyy.   This works in English, so for French I used the fr-CA locale.  I specified the NLDATEYM format which is equivalent to monyy according to the SAS manual.  I need to keep the date field as numeric so it displays properly on a graph axis.

However, NLDATEYM does not give the abbreviated month name (as shown in the second table).

Therefore I created a new variable  (newdate) using the NLDATE function as in the dataset new in the code attached.  Unfortunately it creates a character value that does not really work in the graph.

 I am using SAS 9.4 (release 3)

option missing='-' locale='en_US'; 

data stocks;
   set sashelp.stocks (where=(year(date)=2005));
run;  
proc sort;  
by descending stock date;
run;

proc report nowd;
Title "locale='en_US'";
   format date monyy.;
   column stock close,date;
   define stock/group order=data;   
   define close/analysis ' ' ;
   define date/across ' ' order=data;
 run;
 
 option locale='fr_CA';
proc report nowd;
Title "locale='fr_CA'";
   format date NLDATEYM.;
   column stock close,date;
   define stock/group order=data;   
   define close/analysis ' ' ;
   define date/across ' ' order=data;
 run;
 
data new;
   set stocks;    
      newdate=nldate(date,'%b%y');
run;
 proc report nowd;
Title "locale='fr_CA' with newdate=nldate(date,'%b%y')";
   column stock close,newdate;
   define stock/group order=data; 
   define close/analysis ' ' ;
   define newdate/across ' ' order=data;  
 run;
 
 title '';
proc sgplot data=new(where=(stock='IBM')) noborder;
  vbar newdate / response=close  
           group=stock;
  xaxis display=(nolabel noline noticks);
  yaxis display=(noline noticks) grid;
run;
 

Any help to solve this issue will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks  

[ChrisNZ]

Why not 

proc sgplot data=stocks(where=(stock='IBM')) noborder;
   format date NLDATEYM.;
  vbar date / response=close  
           group=stock;
  xaxis display=(nolabel noline noticks);
  yaxis display=(noline noticks) grid;
run;
I

It works fine for the graph

[ghosh]

>Thanks for your response.  However, as I mentioned, I would like to use abbreviated month names.

Oops sorry, mmm more thinking required!

[ChrisNZ]

I tried

proc format; 
  picture moisyy (default=5)
    low - high = '%b%Y' (datatype=date)  ;
run; 

but the locale is ignored.

[ballardw]

---

@ghosh wrote:

>Thanks for your response.  However, as I mentioned, I would like to use abbreviated month names.

Oops sorry, mmm more thinking required!

---

You did not specify a width for the NLDATEYM format. When you just NLDATEYM the default width is 16. Specify NLDATEYM6. to get something such as OCT 14 (Month and 2 digit year).

[ghosh]

NLDATEYM6. does not work, shows asterisks for just one period.

[PGStats]

How about

proc sgplot data=sashelp.stocks(where=(stock='IBM' and year(date)=2000)) noborder;
   format date NLDATEYMM.;
  vbar date / response=close  
           group=stock;
  xaxis display=(nolabel noline noticks);
  yaxis display=(noline noticks) grid;
run;

[ghosh]

That's very close, is it possible to show just the last two digits of the year, all in one row?

Thanks for the suggestion, though!

[Tom]

Why not just use the month number instead?  YYMMD7.

431   data _null_;
432     do month=1 to 12;
433       date=mdy(month,1,2018);
434       put month= date= yymmd7. ;
435     end;
436   run;

month=1 date=2018-01
month=2 date=2018-02
month=3 date=2018-03
month=4 date=2018-04
month=5 date=2018-05
month=6 date=2018-06
month=7 date=2018-07
month=8 date=2018-08
month=9 date=2018-09
month=10 date=2018-10
month=11 date=2018-11
month=12 date=2018-12

[ghosh]

Hi Tom, The specifications require it in that format.

Thanks!

[Tom]

Worked for me.

4     %put locale=%sysfunc(getoption(locale));
locale=FRENCH_FRANCE
5     proc format ;
6       picture my low-high='%b-%Y' (datatype=date);
NOTE: Format MY has been output.
7     run;

NOTE: PROCEDURE FORMAT used (Total process time):
      real time           0.01 seconds
      cpu time            0.01 seconds


8
9     data xx ;
10     do month=1 to 12;
11       date=mdy(month,1,2019);
12       str=put(date,my8.);
13       put (_all_) (=);
14     end;
15    run;

month=1 date=21550 str=jan-2019
month=2 date=21581 str=fev-2019
month=3 date=21609 str=mar-2019
month=4 date=21640 str=avr-2019
month=5 date=21670 str=mai-2019
month=6 date=21701 str=jun-2019
month=7 date=21731 str=jul-2019
month=8 date=21762 str=aou-2019
month=9 date=21793 str=sep-2019
month=10 date=21823 str=oct-2019
month=11 date=21854 str=nov-2019
month=12 date=21884 str=dec-2019
NOTE: The data set WORK.XX has 1 observations and 3 variables.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
      real time           0.16 seconds
      cpu time            0.01 seconds


16    options locale=English;
17    %put locale=%sysfunc(getoption(locale));
locale=ENGLISH_UNITEDSTATES
18    data xx ;
19     do month=1 to 12;
20       date=mdy(month,1,2019);
21       str=put(date,my8.);
22       put (_all_) (=);
23     end;
24    run;

month=1 date=21550 str=JAN-2019
month=2 date=21581 str=FEB-2019
month=3 date=21609 str=MAR-2019
month=4 date=21640 str=APR-2019
month=5 date=21670 str=MAY-2019
month=6 date=21701 str=JUN-2019
month=7 date=21731 str=JUL-2019
month=8 date=21762 str=AUG-2019
month=9 date=21793 str=SEP-2019
month=10 date=21823 str=OCT-2019
month=11 date=21854 str=NOV-2019
month=12 date=21884 str=DEC-2019
NOTE: The data set WORK.XX has 1 observations and 3 variables.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
      real time           0.02 seconds
      cpu time            0.01 seconds

[ghosh]

Tom, when I tried the Picture format earlier, it did not work with SGPLOT.  btw %b%y (lowercase gives 2 digit year) would be perfect.

I will try with your code first thing tomorrow morning.

Thanks!

[ghosh]

The picture format does not work with SGPLOT or Proc Report

option missing='-' locale='en_US'; 
data stocks;
   set sashelp.stocks (where=(year(date)=2005));
run;  
proc sort;  
by descending stock date;
run;

proc format;
  picture my low - high= '%b%y' (datatype=date);
  run;

proc report nowd;
Title "locale='en_US'";
   format date my.;
   column stock close,date;
   define stock/group order=data;   
   define close/analysis ' ' ;
   define date/across ' ' order=data;
 run;

proc sgplot data=stocks(where=(stock='IBM')) noborder;
   format date my.;
  vbar date / response=close  
           group=stock;
  xaxis display=(nolabel noline noticks);
  yaxis display=(noline noticks) grid;
run;
 
option missing='-' locale='fr_CA';
proc report nowd;
Title "locale='fr_CA'";
   format date my.;
   column stock close,date;
   define stock/group order=data;   
   define close/analysis ' ' ;
   define date/across ' ' order=data;
 run;

proc sgplot data=stocks(where=(stock='IBM')) noborder;
   format date my.;
  vbar date / response=close  
           group=stock;
  xaxis display=(nolabel noline noticks);
  yaxis display=(noline noticks) grid;
run;
 

[ghosh · Accepted solution]

Found the answer from SAS Tech Support. 

The line that did the trick is the following format statement, works for both English and French locale in Report and SGPLOT:

format date EURDFMY. ;

Thanks everyone for taking the time to help.

[PGStats]

Be careful. This choice of format goes against SAS own recommendations:

https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=nlsref&docsetTarget=n1ta9hosby6dq3n16s5wgc6908po.htm&docsetV...