Store Date values in variables and concatenate

[kumarsandip975]

Can you please help me the below requirement. 

I need to store date values as below.

data t1;

validfrom=<firstdayoflastmonth> e.g 01APR2023;

ValidTill=<lastdayoflastmonth> e.g 30APR2023;

run;

already, I have another dataset , where above two variables (validfrom and validtill) have dates.

I need to concatenate both of them. 

I used something, but this is storing as character, and unable to concatenate. 

%let firstdayofthelastmonth = %sysfunc(intnx(month,%sysfunc(today()),-1),date9.);
%let lastdayofthelastmonth = %sysfunc(intnx(month,%sysfunc(today()),-1,e),date9.);
%put &firstdayofthelastmonth.;
%put &lastdayofthelastmonth.;

Kindly suggest. 

[PeterClemmensen]

What exactly do you need to concatenate? Please provide an example and be specific.

[Kurt_Bremser]

What do you mean by "concatenate"?

Concatenation is a character operation, like

want = x !! y;

[Tom]

There is a major disconnect between this statement:

I have another dataset , where above two variables (validfrom and validtill) have dates.

And your later usage of MACRO CODE.

%let firstdayofthelastmonth = %sysfunc(intnx(month,%sysfunc(today()),-1),date9.);

If you have data in a data step then use SAS CODE to manipulate the data.

So if you want to make new variable that concatenates the values of two dates then you will need to first convert them into STRINGS.  

First let's make a dataset with the two date variables.

data HAVE;
  validfrom='01APR2023'd;
  validtill='30APR2023'd;
  format validfrom validtill date9.;
run;

Perhaps by using VVALUE() function so whatever display format you have attached to the variable is used in the conversion?

data want;
  set have;
  length combined $19 ;
  combined=catx('-',vvalue(validfrom),vvalue(validtill));
run;

Result

Obs    validfrom    validtill         combined

 1     01APR2023    30APR2023    01APR2023-30APR2023

But I suspect that your real request is something totally different, so please provide more information about what you are actually trying to do.

[Quentin · Accepted solution]

I'm also not sure what you mean by concatenate, but from the code you shared, I wonder if you're trying to do something like:

%let firstdayofthelastmonth = "%sysfunc(intnx(month,%sysfunc(today()),-1),date9.)"d;
%let lastdayofthelastmonth = "%sysfunc(intnx(month,%sysfunc(today()),-1,e),date9.)"d;

%put &firstdayofthelastmonth.;
%put &lastdayofthelastmonth.;

data t1;
  validfrom=&firstdayofthelastmonth;
  ValidTill=&lastdayofthelastmonth;

  put (_all_)(=) ;

  format validfrom validtill date9. ;
run;