Today() doesnt work in where statement

[pandhandj]

Hi Guys, I'm new to SAS (EG 9.3) and very new here...please be gentle and use simple words!

I have inherited some code that is ran each morning, with the date manually changed each day.  I want to automate this code, so i am trying to change the manual date to today(), so it doesn’t need any user input.

if i take the where...Today() statement out, i get all the dates, when i put it back in i don’t  get any observations.

Thanks in advance for nay help given,

paul

proc sql;
create table work.alerts_daily as
   select
       intID,
       datecreated,
      description,
      subject,
      SubjectEntity,
      CustomerNumber
   from table.alert
      where description like 'Alert1' or description like 'Alert2' or description like 'Alert3';
quit;

proc sql;

   create table LN_Alert_DAY as
      select distinct a. *,
      b. Property

   from work.alerts_daily as

      a inner join work.customer_status2 as b

      on a. CustomerNumber = b. ID

      order by intID;

run;

proc sql;
   create table work.LN_Alert_DT as
      select * from LN_Alert_DAY
         where Datecreated = today();
run;

[Reeza]

What did your manual date look like?

Most likely the variable datecreated isn't a SAS date which is what you're expecting. It could either be a character variable or a date time variable. Check the variable type and format for the DateCreated variable. 

[pandhandj · Accepted solution]

HI Reeza,

this is the original date:

where (DateCreated = '14jul2016:00:00:000'dt);

[Reeza]

That's a date time variable, not a date variable. 

You can use the following instead of just today() to create a date time variable.

DateCreated = dhms(today(), 0, 0,0) 

Or you could use datepart function to change dateCreated to a date variable. 

Datepart(dateCreated)= today()

[pandhandj]

Woo! and Hoo!

thats got it going,

thanks very much Reeza.

[PGStats]

Please mark @Reeza's answer as accepted.