Force Today() to a specific date?

[Rachie]

Hi there

I have a batch job that I need to re-run which uses the Today() function throughout the code. I appreciate that I can go and change these references and also for future use adapt the program so the Today() is used once at the start of the program to create a macro variable that is referenced in the rest of the code. 

However, is it also possible to force the Today() to be a specific date value within a SAS session instead of defaulting to todays date? 

Thank you

[SASKiwi]

If you want a specific date then you wouldn't use the TODAY function at all.

A good approach is to assign the program run date to a macro variable like so:

*%let Run_Date         = 18May2021;
%let Run_Date          = %sysfunc(today(), date9.);

Then use the macro variable throughout your code. If you want a specific date then uncomment the specific date assignment and comment the TODAY statement.

If you are running a batch job then you can pass in the required date in as a job parameter and avoid any coding changes. How you do that would depend on how you are scheduling the job.

[Kurt_Bremser]

TODAY() works from the system clock. Changing that would have grave consequences.
Change the calls to macro variables.

[PaigeMiller]

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@Rachie wrote:

However, is it also possible to force the Today() to be a specific date value within a SAS session instead of defaulting to todays date? 

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Is this what you want?

%let today = %sysevalf('01MAY2021'd);

[Sajid01]

Hello @Rachie 
As you are running a batch process you can pass a date as a parameter if you want to use a  date other today. . For example

Yourpath_to_sas/SAS.EXE -SYSPARM "01JAN2012"

Now in the code you can have something like this 

%if &sysparam=' ' %then %do;
%let Run_Date          = %sysfunc(today(), date9.);
%end;
%else %do
%let Run_Date          = "&sysparam"d;
%end;

[Reeza]

Something like this:

%let override_date = %sysfunc(mdy(1, 1, 2021));
%let today = %sysfunc(coalescec(&override_date., %sysfunc(today())));

%put &today;

%let override_date =;
%let today = %sysfunc(coalescec(&override_date., %sysfunc(today())));
%put &today;

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@Rachie wrote:

Hi there

I have a batch job that I need to re-run which uses the Today() function throughout the code. I appreciate that I can go and change these references and also for future use adapt the program so the Today() is used once at the start of the program to create a macro variable that is referenced in the rest of the code. 

However, is it also possible to force the Today() to be a specific date value within a SAS session instead of defaulting to todays date? 

Thank you

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