How to mix and match dates in SAS??

[Sandy]

Hi All,

Based on data could anyone assist me - making program that contains

test_date closest to delivery_date.

delivery_date         test_date   

11/16/2011                21/nov/2011      

                               10/nov/2011

                               15/oct/2010

Thanks in advance

[Haikuo]

Hi, I figure you should have an 'id' variable in this case, but if you don't, feel free to take it out:

proc sql;

  create table want as

     select distinct a.* from have a, have b

   where a.id=b.id

     group by a.id /*I assume you should have one*/, b.delivery_date

   having abs(b.test_date-a.delivery_date)=min(abs(a.delivery_date-b.test_date));

quit;

Haikuo

[Sandy]

I have a variable delivery_date with one observation and test_date with 20 observations. I'd like to find the closest date in test_date to delivery_date by find the minimum absolute difference and retain the minimum value.

When I merge the datasets I only get two observations paired up and get missing values for the rest. Would anyone please explain how to go about this with maybe a do loop or...???

Thank you!

delivery_date

11/16/2011

Test_date 13-Mar-11 10-Apr-11 20-May-11 9-Jun-11 31-Jul-11 17-Aug-11 12-Sep-11 10-Nov-11 11-Oct-11 12-Dec-11 29-Feb-12 13-Mar-13 10-Apr-10 20-May-10 9-Jun-10 21-Jul-11 15-Aug-11 19-Oct-11 21-Nov-11 22-Dec-11