SAS datetime

[yubaraj]

Hi there

I am a new SAS user.

I have a character DATETIME variable named "run_date" recorded as "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" which has a 17 character length. (2018-OCT-11 09:15).

I want to convert into numeric datetime variable in date19 format.

Hope you can help.

Thanks

Yuba 

[Reeza]

Something like the following should work - ANYDTDTM will automatically detect your datetime informat.

run_date_num = input(run_date, anydtdtm.);
format run_date_num datetime.;

[yubaraj]

Hi Reeza

Thanks a lot for your quick response.

The program you suggested runs perfectly with no error message on the log window. but the output data has all the 'run_date_num' as blank. 

The original variable was in  Character format $17 and informat$17 and not all observations have a 'run date' data.

This is surprising, any idea what could be the reason.

Thanks

Yuba 

[Reeza]

Show your code and log please. Could be anything from a missing semicolon to a different format for you date than shown in your question. 

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@yubaraj wrote:

Hi Reeza

Thanks a lot for your quick response.

The program you suggested runs perfectly with no error message on the log window. but the output data has all the 'run_date_num' as blank. 

The original variable was in  Character format $17 and informat$17 and not all observations have a 'run date' data.

This is surprising, any idea what could be the reason.

Thanks

Yuba 

---

[Reeza]

NVM - its because you have a very unique data format and you'll need a specific informat for it.

 "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" => this is a standard format and my methods works in this case

2018-OCT-11 09:15 => this is a non-standard format and my method does not work in this case.

My apologies, I didn't notice the discrepancy between these initially. See below. 

data example;
date_have = "2018-OCT-11 09:15";
date_want = input(date_have, anydtdtm.);
output;
date_have = "2018-10-11 09:15";
date_want = input(date_have, anydtdtm.);
output;
format date_want datetime.;
run;

proc print data=example;
run;

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

There is not such thing as a DATE19. format DATE formats run from 5 to 11.

You would want a DATETIME format to display the time component.

Congratulations for finding one of the sillier date time formats:

data example;
  x="2018-OCT-11 09:15";
  y = dhms(input(x,anydtdte11.),0,0,input(substr(x,13),time.));
  format y datetime19.;
run;

Which uses a specific length  to read the date part from the first 11 characters and the time from the last 5.

If your "dates" don't have 2-digit values for the day this will likely fail.

[yubaraj]

Great Thanks ballardw , that worked perfectly. Thanks Reeza.