how to convert character YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:SS to date format and overwrite old variables

[ccnky123]

how to convert character YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:ss to date format  and overwrite old variables.

table is like:

id	app_dt
101	2015/6/8 13:24:01
102	2016/11/2 9:11:12
103	2016/3/2 21:21:23

[Astounding · Accepted solution]

You can't overwrite the original variable without some trickery, because you want to replace a character variable with a numeric value.  (Dates are numeric in SAS.)  So here's a way that accomplishes that.

data want;

set have;

app_dt = scan(app_dt, 1, ' ');

tempdate = input(app_dt, yymmdd10.);

format tempdate yymmdd10.;

drop app_dt;

rename tempdate = app_dt;

run;