the proc import dbms=xls code looks at the indvidual cell contents. If a column has both numeric and character cells then it will be a character field. Excel is # of days since 1/1/1900. SAS is # of days since 1/1/1970. So if you convert the character string to a numeric and apply a date format, the number will be 70 years in the future. The following equation needs to be applied to each date variable. numdate = input(chardate,best.) - 21915; (BTW, if your dates still 4 years in the past, then the spreadsheet has a 1904 base date and you'll need to ADD back in 1462.) Here is my entire test program: data; chardate = "39000"; numdate = input(chardate,best.) - 21915; format numdate date.; put numdate; run; Hope that is helpful Henry (developer of the sas/acccess for pc files dbms=xls code)
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