Referencing a table that has a set of dates in SAS Date format that I want to convert to Date9.

[Jyuen204]

I am referencing a table for some data and the table contains a date field but it is set in a SAS Date format:
23480
23481
23482 etc

I want to query the data and pull it with Date9 format

I tried :
SELECT DATEPART(RT_DATE) AS PERIOD_DT format = date9.

but it returns with the base SAS date (Jan 1 1960)

Is there another method to use in my select to get the date to convert? Thanks!

[PaigeMiller]

If the values are integers, like 23480, you just assign the DATE9. format to this variable.

[Tom]

Why did you treat the values as if they were DATETIME values instead of DATE values?

SAS stores datetime values in seconds and date values in days.

The number 23,480 is  01JAN1960:06:31:20 when treated as a count of seconds but it is 14APR2024 when treated as a count of days.

[Jyuen204]

I was not aware that I did. I am simply looking for a select option to get a date9. date from a source table that has the date values in SAS format

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

The DATEPART function assumes that you are extracting a Date value from a DATETIME value. DATETIME values are numbers of seconds and dates are numbers of days. So when you apply the Datepart to a date you get a very much smaller result. Basically any date between 01JAN1960 and 20JUL2196 will return a "datepart" value of 01JAN1960.

Your numeric value of 23480 is 14APR2024. So applying datepart to it will result in 01JAN1960.

So you apparently have date values and using Datepart is not wanted or needed. Just apply the date9. format to that variable.

[Jyuen204]

Thank you, that worked. I wasnt aware that was what the function was doing. Appreciate the guidance.

[ballardw]

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Working-with-Dates-and-Times-in-SAS-Tutorial/... has a PDF with much information about dates you may find helpful.