convert year date value from character to numeric

[dr2014]

Hi,

I have the date1 value = 1978 i.e. all in 4 digits with informat and format of $64. I want to covert it to a numeric value with a format of year4.

First I tried:

data want;

 set have;

if date2=input(date1,$64);

format date2 year4.;

run;

It doesn't work.

If I remove the format statement it keeps the value as character as the original variable.

I also tried date2=input(date1, year4.); and that doesn't work too.

Thanks.

[PaigeMiller]

There is no YEAR format or INFORMAT.

Years don't need formats, if the year is 1978, everyone knows what that means and you don't need to change its appearance with a format.

In your case, you want to simply convert from character to numeric

date2 = input(date1,4.);

[VDD · Accepted solution]

you could assign a length to the date2 like this

data want;

length date2 4.;

 set have;

[dr2014]

Thank you! 

[dr2014]

And will remember that.