Convert date YYYYMMDD10 to YYYMM6

[newboy1218]

Hi, I have a date variable in my dataset, a, that has a format yyyymmdd10. I want to convert it to a vairable with format yyymm6.

For example, 

record      a                      want

1             2003-05-21      200305

However, I wrote the following SAS code and it gave me something else:

data output;
	set input;
	want = datepart(a);
	format want yymmn6.;
run;

This is what I get now:

record     a                       want

1             2003-05-21      196001

Does anyone know how I can fix it? Thanks!

[PaigeMiller · Accepted solution]

You don't really need a new variable, you can just change the format on variable A to yymmn6.;

data output;
	set input;
	format a yymmn6.;
run;

Also, DATEPART makes no sense here, and is not needed, as your value is already a valid SAS date.

[maguiremq]

If I understand correctly, this is what you want:

data have;
input record a :yymmdd10.;
format a yymmdd10.;
datalines;
1 2003-05-21
;
run;

data want;
	set have;
		want = put(a, yymmn6.);
run;

[Reeza]

You want a three digit year? That isn't a standard format that I'm aware of...if you can use a 4 digit year then it's quite simple to use a new format. If you really want only the last three digits you'll need a custom format or a manual calculation. 

Assuming you want the YYYYMM that would be YYMMx./YYMMD6. format - D is for the dash.

https://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmsascdc&cdcVersion=9.4_3.5&docsetId=leforinforref&docsetTarge...

DATEPART takes the date portion of a datetime, I cannot say if that is necessary as you don't indicate types. Try the YYMMD6. format 

---

@newboy1218 wrote:

Hi, I have a date variable in my dataset, a, that has a format yyyymmdd10. I want to convert it to a vairable with format yyymm6.

For example, 

record      a                      want

1             2003-05-21      200305

However, I wrote the following SAS code and it gave me something else:

data output;
	set input;
	want = datepart(a);
	format want yymmn6.;
run;

This is what I get now:

record     a                       want

1             2003-05-21      196001

Does anyone know how I can fix it? Thanks!

---

[ballardw]

---

@newboy1218 wrote:

Hi, I have a date variable in my dataset, a, that has a format yyyymmdd10. I want to convert it to a vairable with format yyymm6.

For example, 

record      a                      want

1             2003-05-21      200305

However, I wrote the following SAS code and it gave me something else:

data output;
	set input;
	want = datepart(a);
	format want yymmn6.;
run;

This is what I get now:

record     a                       want

1             2003-05-21      196001

Does anyone know how I can fix it? Thanks!

---

Do not use the DATEPART function with values that are already dates. DATEPART is designed to extract the date, number of days, from a DATETIME value, which uses seconds. When you used the datepart function SAS assumed that the "date" was a date time and the underlying datetime represented by the number of days when considered as seconds means the "date" was treated as 01JAN60:04:24:06.

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Working-with-Dates-and-Times-in-SAS-Tutorial/... has a PDF with much information about dates.