Convert character to date9.

[SasStatistics]

I have data of the following form: 

period	some_random_number
202203	100
202204	222

where the period has the type: character with length 9.

and I would like to convert it to date9. so that 202203 is converted to 01MAR2022 and 202204 to 01APR2022.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. 

[PaigeMiller]

data want;
    set have;
    new_period=input(period,yymmn6.);
    format new_period date9.;
run;

[Tom]

Use INPUT() to make a new numeric variable with date values.  The YYMMN informat will recognize those strings.

date=input(period,yymmn6.);
format date date9.;