date format

[BigFluffyTail]

This is driving me crazy.  I need to put the variable into datetime format but I get January 1, 1960 when I do.  Here is the code:

data null;
format Current_Date mmddyy10. Today datetime20.;
Current_Date = today();
Today = today();
run;

This is the result:

Current_Date	Today
08/11/2021	01Jan1960 6:15:03

Why am I getting the wrong date with the datetime format?

Thanks!

[jimbarbour · Accepted solution]

Today() does not return a date-time value, it only returns a date.

Try this:

data null;
    format Current_Date mmddyy10. Today datetime20.;
    Current_Date = today();
    Today = datetime();
    PUTLOG "NOTE: " Current_Date= Today=;
run;

Jim

[JHE]

I have date is the forma such as : 8/21/2021,  customer need the format as : 2021/08/21, how do I ? 

[JHE]

I need convert date display:

I have date for example: 8/21/2021, customer need display this format as 2021/08/21.

What I could do? 

Thank you 

[PaigeMiller]

Use format date9. for variable TODAY, which is a date, not a date/time

or

use the DATETIME() function and use format datetime20.

[Tom]

Because you used the wrong format for the value you stored.  You stored the number of days since 1960 into the variable and are treating that (small) number as if it was the number of seconds since 1960.  Because the number of days  is so much smaller than the number of seconds (off by a factor of 24*60*60) it is showing as some time in the morning of the January first.

Remember that SAS datasets have two types of variables: fixed length characters strings and floating point numbers.  Formats are just instructions for how to convert values to text.  Informats are instructions for how to convert text into values.