How to create date series from start and end dates?

[WendyT]

SAS folks-

I’m looking for an easy way to generate a series of SAS dates given the start date and end date in macro variables (daily or monthly is typical).  I run into this occasionally, and have not found a solution that always works.

Given macro variables START_DATE of 01apr1998 and END_DATE of 11feb2014, then ????

We are running SAS 9.3, and we have ETS, STAT, and GRAPH.

Thanks so much for your help!

Wendy T

[Reeza]

%let start_date=01Apr1998;

%let end_date=11feb2014;

data want;

do date="&start_date"d to "&end_date"d;

output;

end;

format date date9.;

run;

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Using the intnx function, you can change the month to days for different time periods, ie week, month, quarter etc. Check the documentation for the options

%let start_date=01Apr1998;

%let end_date=11feb2014;

data want_month;

date="&start_date"d;

do while (date<="&end_date"d);

    output;

    date=intnx('month', date, 1, 's');

end;

format date date9.;

run;

data want_day;

date="&start_date"d;

do while (date<="&end_date"d);

    output;

    date=intnx('day', date, 1, 's');

end;

format date date9.;

run;

[WendyT]

Reeza-

Thanks so much for your elegant answers - they were just what I needed! 

Sorry for the delay in getting them marked - for some reason I have been unable to access the buttons.

Wendy T