character to date

[buckeyefisher]

My year field has been stored in character field of 25 length.

I want to convert this to date field with years.

I tried this code but the output is empty

data want;

set have;

date_sas=input(put(dateinchar, 4.), yymmdd8.);

format date_sas date 9.;

run;

[djbateman]

Can you give an example (or two) of what DATEINCHAR looks like and what you want DATE_SAS to look like?

[buckeyefisher]

dateinchar (this field is defined as character in the input file length - 25)

2004

2005

1999

dateinsas ( I want this to be defined as date field, length could be 4 digits)

2004

2005

1999

[djbateman]

Does this help?  I converted the 4-digit character year into a 4-digit numeric year (DATEINNUM), but I also converted it into a SAS date (DATEINSAS) using the MDY() function where I assumed the month was January and the day was the 1st.  If you want a different month/day value, you can change those as you see fit.

data dates;

  length dateinchar $25;

  input dateinchar $;

  format dateinsas yymmdd8.;

  dateinnum=input(dateinchar,4.);

  dateinsas=mdy(1,1,input(dateinchar,4.));

  cards;

2004

2005

1999

;

run;

[buckeyefisher]

Thanks, It doesn't work.

For example when input  = 2007 , it gives 07-01-01 whereas I want output = 2007 (but the field being defined as a date field)

[djbateman · Accepted solution]

You will need to change the date format to what you want it to look like.  Instead of YYMMDD8. try YEAR. in its place:

data dates;

  length dateinchar $25;

  input dateinchar $;

  format dateinsas year.;

  dateinnum=input(dateinchar,4.);

  dateinsas=mdy(1,1,dateinnum);

  cards;

2004

2005

1999

;

run;

[buckeyefisher]

this worked. We dont need to convert this to numeric.

format dateinsas year.;

dateinsas=mdy(1,1,dateinchar);

Thanks!!!