Select from data values in case when

[aalluru]

My code is as follows:

proc sql;
create table dataset_new as
SELECT m.*, case when date_1 is not null thendate_1 else date_2 end as new_date
from dataset_old m
left join joined_table c on m.id_prior =c.id
where 1=1;
quit;

However, when I go to the new_date column, the values are displayed as integers and not as dates. Please advise on how to proceed.

[Kurt_Bremser]

SAS dates are integers, counting the days from 1960-01-01. Apply a date format (like YYMMDD10.) to make them human-readable.

And why do you use that complicated CASE, when a simple COALESCE function would do it?

coalesce(date_1,date_2) format=yymmdd10. as new_date

[aalluru]

now the output is just asterisk signs

[Reeza]

then you likely have a datetime, ie a time component is one each date. 

Try the DTDATE9. format or tell us what the format is on your original variables.

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@aalluru wrote:

now the output is just asterisk signs

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[Kurt_Bremser]

Show us such a value without the format.