thanks a lot for looking into it ... View more

You approach was also what came to mind for me. I can see DBA's having a huge issue with a Cartesian join, but for small tables that certainty works! ... View more

 i did proc contents to check the type of variables that are being produced and it doesn't seem to be doing the job.    It's not doing the job? You have given us no information about the problem you are experiencing. Explain this. What isn't working? What result do you want that you are not getting? Your PROC CONTENTS shows you have a variable named DATE that is numeric and formatted as a date.   Could it be that you really want this?   DATE1 = trim(substr(period_desc,15,10)); Or even better yet   date1 = scan(period_desc,-1,' ');   ... View more