How to use 'put' to change data format into charater?

[ybz12003]

Hello:

I have a SAS dataset with 30 variables with date format and 120 variables with numeric formate.  I need to change all of them into charterics.   Is there a way I could refer them all in once instead of typing them all?   This is not one time use.  I am expecting I will have more data coming from different sources with different counts of date and numeric variables.  I hope I don't need to type them again and again.  Thanks.

[Reeza]

Create two arrays. Use the _character_ and _numeric_ variable list shorthand. 

[ballardw]

Depending on what you actually attempt and are going to use the data for be aware that you may need to consider leading blanks in the resulting variables.

[RW9]

Read the instructions at the bottom of the post a question.  Post example test data in the form of a datastep, and what you want the output to look like.  From the little you post I would guess by date variables you have numeric date variables.  Is there a simple way of identifying these from the name?  If so you can use @Reeza's suggestion and simply:

data want;
  set have;
  array nums _numeric_;
  array char_res{150} $100;
  do i =1 to 150;
    call vname(nums{i},name);
    if substr(name,1,4)=date then char_res{i}=put(nums{i},date9.);
    else put(nums{i},best.);
  end;
run;

[Tom]

Where is the list of variable names to convert coming from? Do you have them in a dataset? Or as a space delimited list of names in a macro variable?

Are there going to be any numeric variables left in the data set?  

It might just be easier to write the data to a text file and read it back in using the same variable names, but as character varaibles.

proc contents data=have noprint out=contents; run;
proc sql noprint ;
  select varnum,name 
    into :varlist,:varlist separated by ' ' 
    from contents
    order by 1
  ;
quit;
filename rawdata temp;
data _null_;
  set have ;
  file rawdata dsd lrecl=1000000 ;
  put &varlist ;
run;
data want ;
  length &varlist $20 ;
  infile rawdata dsd truncover lrecl=1000000;
  input &varlist ;
run;

[ybz12003]

Thanks for the thoughtful explaination.

[Ksharp]

Make a macro.    


data class;
 set sashelp.class;
run;

data _null_;
 set sashelp.vcolumn(
keep=libname memname type name
where=(libname='WORK' and memname='CLASS' and type='num')) end=last;
if _n_=1 then call execute('data want; set class;');
call execute(catt('char_',name,'=vvalue(',name,');'));
if last then call execute('run;');
run;