Hi everyone,
I am having issues changing my DATE column from a CHAR to a NUM so that I can do a join with another table.
The code runs, however when I check the properties, the "accurate_episode_date"'s property is still CHAR.
Here is the code:
data main2; set covid.covid;
format test_date mmddyy10.;
test_date = input(Accurate_Episode_Date,date9.);
run;
Thanks
1) you can't change the type of an existing variable
2) you created a new variable test_date that should be numeric and display in the Date9. format. That is the one to look at as your code did not even attempt to change Accurate_Episode_Date.
@JibJam221 wrote:
Sorry I meant to say that test_date didnt change to a NUM variable. Any suggestions on how to make test_date a NUM var?
You cannot change the type of an existing variable. So if TEST_DATE already appeared as a character variable in your source dataset then just trying to attach a numeric format to it or assign a numeric value to it would not change how it was already defined.
Check that TEST_DATE does not already exist on COVID.COVID. If it does then you can use DROP= or RENAME= dataset option to get it out of the way so you can use TEST_DATE as the name of your NEW variable.
data main2;
set covid.covid (drop=test_date);
format test_date mmddyy10.;
test_date = input(Accurate_Episode_Date,date9.);
run;
Please post the complete log of that step.
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