Convert character to date

[rmacarthur]

Am not able to convert character text to a SAS date, apologies for the simple request:

Data to be converted are "Mark_App_s" character of length 12.

Date sample 

Mark_App_s

 11/20/2001 

 09/05/2017 

 06/06/2017 

 10/31/2017 

Code sample is :

Data App_2 ;
set App_1 ;
Mark_App = input(Mark_App_s, yymmdd10.) ;
format Mark_App mmddyy10.;
run ;

Thanks !

[Shmuel]

Change the informat to mmdyy10.:

Mark_App = input(Mark_App_s, mmdyy10.) ;

[ballardw]

The yymmdd10. informat would be used to read data that starts with the year such as 2001/11/20.

You may sometimes have to use something like  input(strip(variable),<informat>) if the character variable has leading spaces so that the informat starts reading where the data actually begins.

[rmacarthur]

Thanks, I was using the correct INFOMAT, (mmddyy10.), very sorry I just typed it wrong (above), and I have stripped the leading and trailing characters, and have also set the length of the character variable "Mark_App_s " to $12. 

So here is a data sample:

Mark_App_s 
 11/20/2001     
 09/05/2017     
 08/30/2017     
 06/06/2017     
 10/31/2017     
 01/23/2004     

and here is the code

Data App_2 ;
set    App_1 ;
Mark_App = input(Mark_App_s, mmddyy10.) ;
format Mark_App mmddyy10.;
run ;

And this code does not change the character variable to a date variable.    

[Shmuel · Accepted solution]

You can't change type of a variable and there is no a date type.

In your code Mark_app will be a numeric type. The format defines that it is a date and how to display it.

The input variable - Mark_app_s - is a char type variable.

The only way to "change" variable type is by recreating it:

data want;
  set have (rename=(numvar=char));
        numvar = input(char, <informat>);
run;

[rmacarthur]

Note about the solution, the difficulty was caused by hidden characters in the variable "Mark_App_s ", which was imported from an online database.  Prior to implementing the above solution, I had to parse the variable using a SUBSTRING into MM, DD, YYYY components, Then tried converting each to a numeric variable.  If it would not convert using an INPUT function, that indicated there were hidden characters, and I continued to use the SUBSTRING function until the numeric conversion method worked.  Only then could the 

Mark_App_d  =     mdy(Month_2,Day,Year)       

function be used to convert the character variables (Month_2,Day,Year) to a SAS Date.

Thanks again for your assistance !