Extracting the year from a character SAS variable

[ama220]

Hello: Any help with extracting the year from a SAS character variable 

Latest_date_Date

Char

11

$11.

example 08-mar-2001

End result wanted is a new latest_year = 2001.

Thanks!

[yabwon · Accepted solution]

latest_year=year(input(Latest_date_Date, date11.));

[ama220]

Thanks for your help!!

[Tom]

If all of the values follow that pattern then just take the 3rd (or last) word when using - as the delimiter.

latest_year = scan(latest_date_date,-1,'-');

Note that will create another character variable.

If you want a number you could use INPUT() function to convert that string into a number.

But in the case perhaps you should first use INPUT() to convert the date string into a date.  Then you could use the YEAR() function to take the year part of the date.

[ama220]

Thank you, this also worked. I saw the top one first. I appreciate your help!

[Kurt_Bremser]

Make your data intelligent by using SAS date values, then it's a breeze:

data want;
set have (rename=(latest_date_date=_date));
latest_date_date = input(_date,date11.);
drop _date;
format latest_date_date date11.;
latest_year = year(latest_date_date);
run;

[ama220]

Thanks for the detailed response! This worked as well, but I saw the top one first and accepted as the solution.