Quick Answer Hopefully: Where is the syntax error?

[Durlov]

Hello, it would be much appreciated, if somone could point out the syntax error.

The contents of the raw data file CALENDAR are listed below:
--------10-------20-------30
01012000
The following SAS program is submitted:
data test;
infile 'calendar';
input @1 date mmddyy10.;
if date = '01012000'd then event = 'January 1st';
run;
Which one of the following is the value of the EVENT variable?

A. The value can not be determined as the program fails to execute due to errors
B. . (missing numeric value)
C. January 1st
D. 01012000

Answer: A.

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

Date literals are in the form of "10Jan2016"d. The case is optional and quotes may be single or double but the month must be the 3 letter abbreviation and either the last 2 digits of year or the 4 digit version.

[Durlov]

Hey ballardw, are you saying SAS can only read "JAN", "FEB", ... as the month from raw data files? I must have missed that during my studying, but that sounds a bit troublesome. So SAS would not be able to read a raw data file that contains 01012000 or 01/01/2000 or 31/12/200 or JAN122000? That would be interesting to note.

[Durlov]

Wait hold on. I think I see the error. By Date literal, you the "01012000"d part. Not the info in the raw data file. Thanks much. That helps!

[Reeza]

Link to SAS Analytics U

http://www.sas.com/en_us/learn/analytics-u.html

[Reeza]

Did you try running the code? The log should help you out here.

1152 data test;
1153 infile 'calendar';
1154 input @1 date mmddyy10.;
1155 if date = '01012000'd then event = 'January 1st';
-----------
77
ERROR: Invalid date/time/datetime constant '01012000'd.
ERROR 77-185: Invalid number conversion on '01012000'd.

1156 cards;

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
WARNING: The data set WORK.TEST may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0
observations and 2 variables.
WARNING: Data set WORK.TEST was not replaced because this step was stopped.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
real time 0.09 seconds
cpu time 0.00 seconds

[Durlov]

Hey Reeza, I have limited access to the SAS program, so I usually can't run the codes. I do research questions on Google before posting them. However, this one had no explanations and posting it is my way of contributing a discussion on the question, so that future SAS users can find it.

[Reeza]

You can use SAS University Edition for learning purposes, even if you're not a student. It's free, as well as the first SAS course. Run at home or via AWS.

And that's not what @ballardw is saying. He's specifying that in code to let SAS know you're referring to a date you specify if it in a specific format. This is a good idea since it means all date literals in code have the same format, consistency is good 🙂 SAS can read in many different date formats and compare them as long as they're in a SAS date format. It's worth reading some papers on how SAS stores dates. I recommend searching lexjansen.com for papers that people have written.

[Durlov]

Yeah, I have SAS Uni. But I can't access it at work... strict downloading restrictions. Anyways, thanks for the help!