substract a date variable from a datetime variable with difference being in years and decimals

[Tom]

You are still not communicating clearly.

If the actual value is 18DEC2023:18:48:18 then you have a CHARACTER variable.

The most likely cause for getting age of 53 is that you messed up the order of the arguments and which one had DATE values versus DATETIME values so that you ended up calculating the number of years since 1960.  So 53 years would be some time in 2013.

Example:

 73         data _null_;
 74           dob = '01JUN2013'd;
 75           date = '01JUN2023'd ; * DATE value, not DATETIME ;
 76           age = yrdif(datepart(date),dob);
 77           put (_all_) (=/);
 78         run;
 
 dob=19510
 date=23162
 age=53.41369863

For this example the real formula should be yrdif(dob,date) which would yield age=10.

[emaguin]

"The most likely cause for getting age of 53 is that you messed up the order of the arguments and which one had DATE values versus DATETIME values so that you ended up calculating the number of years since 1960."

YES. That is exactly what I did.

Case closed.

Thank you for your help and persistence and to all who replied, thank you.

Gene Maguin