To what purpose? If it is to display that in a report, then the simplest option is to have two variables - one a numeric date, and one a character version of that allowing for partials, and missing conversions. This is what we do for analysis domains, the numeric to perform windowing and such like, and character for listings so it reflects the data. I would not recommend applying some sort of internal format to the data for two (actually 3) reasons - first anyone who uses SAS knows dates and that . indicates missing - if you try to change that underlying understanding then anyone who uses your code/data has to learn all your specific things. Secondly it requires a SAS specific thing - formats - to achieve, if your data is going anywhere to another system/format then that will cause further issues for you. Also, I personally avoid the use of proprietary binary files as much as possible - the 32bit versus 64bit completely destroying any work done previously with catalogs is a very good example of why.
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