How to import date and time that reads in as character?

[m_sd]

Hello all,

I'm trying to import Qualtrics excel document and the raw data looks like this:

StartDate (variable name)

Start Date

{"ImportId":"startDate","timeZone":"America/Denver"}

5/12/2019 16:16

I deleted the observations that weren't relevant (rows 2 and 3) but the problem I'm running in to is that when I imported the excel sheet using the code below, I get output that looks like this "43597.6781712963" for a date and time value of "5/12/2019 16:16," for example.

DATA Work.dataset;
	SET work.data;
	IF Startdate = '{"ImportId":"startDate","timeZone":"America/Denver"}' 
		OR StartDate = 'Start Date' then DELETE; 
RUN;

When I go to the OUTPUT DATA tab it shows that the StartDate variable is a character length of 52. Is there a way to change this so it reads it as a date and time like in the raw data file? Will deleting the 2nd and 3rd rows in the raw excel sheet solve my problem? 

Thank you!

P.S. I'm on SAS Studio v9.4, the free version for students.

[arthurcavila]

Did you try formatting the date as date?

Add a statement like:

FORMAT startdate date10.;

DATA Work.dataset;
  infile datalines;
  input startdate anydtdte16.;
  if startdate ~=.;

    numericdate = startdate;
  format startdate date10.;
  datalines;
  StartDate (variable name)
  Start Date
  {"ImportId":"startDate","timeZone":"America/Denver"}
  5/12/2019 16:16
  ;
RUN;