Changing formats based on the format?

[myname]

Hello everyone,

I have several data sets that all contain the same variables. Problem is, one date variable is sometimes stored as a date variable, sometimes as a character variable. There is not apparend systematic to which is which and I dont want to check every data set (there are about 50).

So far I have this code:

it works well, when the variable (published) is a character variable, but when it is a datetime variable it just gives me missing.

%macro published(have);

%do i=1 %to 50;

DATA work.want
set &have._&i.;
  published_1 = input(published ,ANYDTDTE16.);
  format published_1 date9.;
RUN;

%end;
%mend published;

%published(have)

Any Idea how I could run this for all data sets?

(Btw: when published is stored as a date variables it is a datetime variable, and I only need the date.)

Thanks a lot!

[Loko]

Hello,

There is no such thing as datetime variable in SAS. There are only 2 types of variables in SAS: numeric and character.

I suggest you check the type of variable stored within each dataset (using the dictionaries - sashelp.vcolumn, in this case)

and act accordingly based on type of variable.

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Use conditional logic, untested. Not sure what VType returns or if this might throw an error due to mixing of types. 

If vtype(published)='C' then published_i=input...;

else published_i=datepart(published);

[myname]

works exactly how I wanted it to. I did not know the vtype function, thank you!