Creating a var using today's date Sas9.3

[Whitlea]

I need to create a point in time variable in sas 9.3 using today's date where the date format in my data is datetime20.

I would like "today" to eq today's date.

Data WORK.want;
set WORK.want;
If A_Date > today then pt=0;
If B_Date=" " then pt=1;
If B_Date < today then pt=0;
If A_Date < today and B_Date => today then pt=1;
else pt=0;
Run;

Thanks!

[PaigeMiller · Accepted solution]

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@Whitlea wrote:

I need to create a point in time variable in sas 9.3 using today's date where the date format in my data is datetime20.

I would like "today" to eq today's date.

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You would like TODAY to be equal to today's date, but your data is in format datetime20. This is a problem. It won't work the way you describe it. You can't directly compare a date to a datetime value. Instead, you want TODAY to be a datetime variable, most likely equal to 24APR2023:00:00:00. You can use the DATETIME() function and now you are comparing datetimes to datetimes, that will work. So the code would look like:

Data WORK.want1;
    set WORK.want;
    today=datetime(); /* Now today is a datetime variable */
    if A_Date > today then pt=0;
    if B_Date=" " then pt=1; /* This won't work if b_date is a numeric datetime variable, are you sure it is a numeric datetime variable? */
    If B_Date < today then pt=0;
    If A_Date < today and B_Date => today then pt=1;
    else pt=0;
run;

As an alternative, you can do this which will compare dates to dates (using the DATEPART function to turn datetimes into dates):

Data WORK.want1;
    set WORK.want;
    today=today(); /* Now today is a date variable */
    /* You can't directly compare a datetime variable like A_DATE to a DATE Variable */
    /* But the datepart function turns a datetime variable into a date variable which can be compared to a date variable */
    If datepart(A_Date) > today then pt=0;
    If datepart(B_Date)=" " then pt=1; /* This won't work if b_date is a numeric datetime variable, are you sure it is a numeric datetime variable? */
    If datepart(B_Date) < today then pt=0;
    If datepart(A_Date) < today and datepart(B_Date) => today then pt=1;
    else pt=0;
run;

[Whitlea]

Thank you!

How would I do this if B_Date was in format datetime20. as well? 

[PaigeMiller]

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@Whitlea wrote:

Thank you!

How would I do this if B_Date was in format datetime20. as well? 

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You would use

if b_date=. then ... ;

since a numeric variable missing value is indicated by a dot and not by " "