Calculating Age in SAS by assigning cases

[swar]

Hi. This is my data

dt_birth  dt_death 

4/21/1957 4/21/1967

4/21/1965 

4/3/1976

I have to create a 3rd column called age. It should be dt_death - dt_birth if dt_death is present or otherwise it should be today's date- dt_death.

I am using the following procedure but it is giving syntax errors

proc sql ;

create table new as 

select *, case Age 

when dt_death is not null then int(yrdif(dt_birth,dt_death,'ACT/365')

else int(yrdif(dt_birth,date(),'ACT/365')

end

from old;

I think there is a problem here.

when dt_death is not null then  

can you suggest any alternative methods?

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Use COALESCE instead, but I suspect your error is related to missing parentheses and incorrect SQL code.

 int(yrdif(dt_birth,date(),'ACT/365') -> You have 3 open and only 2 closing parentheses.

END - no variable name here? 

int(yrdif(dt_birth, coalesce(dt_death, date()), 'ACT/365') as Age

If you want a CASE statement it would be something like:

case
   when not missing(dt_death) then int(yrdif(dt_birth, dt_death, 'ACT/365'))
   else int(yrdif(dt_birth, date(), 'ACT/365'))
end as AGE

[swar]

Thanks a lot Reeza!! It worked!!