Input a date time with construct <day-name> <month-name> <day> <hh:mm:ss> GMT <year>

[RichardAD]

I'm dealing with an API that returns timestamps as strings such as "Wed Apr 30 13:44:54 GMT 2025"

ANYDTDTM. informat does not properly parse the timestamp from the string.

The construct looks like it is from Java via

DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("E M d k:m:s 'GMT' y")

Is there a SAS informat that directly reads the string?

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

First, I would say that you need to describe what you mean by "ANYDTDTM. informat does not properly parse the timestamp from the string.".

This code:

data junk;
   x= "Wed Apr 30 13:44:54 GMT 2025";
   y= input(x,anydtdtm32.);
   format y datetime20.;
run;

yields a value of 30APR2025:13:44:54 for Y, which looks like the "time" was parsed correctly. Note that if you do not provide a width then the informat uses a default width of 19. Your value as shown is 28 characters long. So you need to provide a width at least of 28. There are some cases where the width specified may need to be a few characters longer than the value to work properly, I can't remember an exact value but remember at least a few cases where a width of 32 worked where the value was a bit less and exact width didn't.

If you mean that the Timezone is not included and is what you need then you need to say so.

There are a number of FORMATS that display Timezone offsets. look in the documentation of the various B8601 and E8601 formats.