date duration format

[freda]

Hi, 

First of all, thank you for all your help.

I have two dates, I want to generate a new variable var=1 if the difference between two dates is less than 5 years.

date 1: 2015/01/02 00:02:25 

date 2: 2014/04/21 09:21:36

Is it correct if I use the following condition:

0< date1 - date2 < 5 * 365.25 * 24 * 3600000

If not, which condition should I use? The date format is yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss

Thank you 

Freda

[andreas_lds]

Do you have a datetime-variable or a char variable, that just looks like a datetime?

Assuming the first, you can use the function intck to calculate the difference:

var1 = intck("yeardt", date1, date2) >= 5;

[Jagadishkatam]

I agree with @andreas_lds

how ever a slight change use 'dtyear' instead of 'yeardt'

var1 = intck("dtyear", date1, date2) >= 5;

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

For your purpose, I would also add a method to the intck function:

var1 = intck("dtyear", date1, date2, 'C') >= 5;

In its default behaviour ('D' or 'Discrete'), the intck function would count the number of boundaries (00:00 on Jan 1st) over which the interval stretches, not the number of whole years (365.25 days) that have passed.

IE

data test;
input (date1 date2) (:yymmdd10.);
format date1 date2 yymmddd10.;
int1 = intck('year',date1,date2);
int2 = intck('year',date1,date2,'c');
cards;
2012-12-31 2017-01-01
2012-01-01 2017-12-31
;
run;