How to pass the time value to another variable?

[Robin_moon]

I have a column called startdate with time values, like:

30JUN1948:00:00:00.000

07JAN1967:00:00:00.000

01FEB1953:00:00:00.000

...

When I tried to pass the time value to a new variable called start,  like this:

data want;
set data have;
start = startdate;
run;

The new column start looked like this:

-363052800

221443200

-218160000

...

I'd like to know how to pass the date time value to the new column with its original format? Thanks.

[PeterClemmensen]

Give the new time variable an appropriate format 🙂

[Kurt_Bremser]

The value is the same, but you also need to apply the same display format. Run a PROC CONTENTS on your dataset, or inspect it with a dataset viewer in Enterprise Guide or SAS Studio and look at the variable Properties.