Did you look at the output? Do the actual variables make sense?   MERGE in SAS is a side-by-side operation. From the number of observations you say you expect then it appears you want to STACK the data which would be a SET not merge.   What you code is doing is aligning records based on the By variables. So if  LI_SALE_NUMBER has the same value in two sets the record is combined into one.   Example of the difference between the MERGE and SET; data two; input x z; datalines; 1 111 3 333 4 444 ; data example1; merge one two; by x; run; data example2; set one two; by x; run; The result: Example 1 x y z 1 11 111 2 22 . 3 33 333 4 . 444 Example 2 x y z 1 11 . 1 . 111 2 22 . 3 33 . 3 . 333 4 . 444 ... View more

If the value is currently numeric of 20081113 and a format like BEST12. , 12. , F12 (or 32 or 8 for any of those digits then it is not a "date" at all and when you Put the value with any date related format you are effectively attempting to treat the value as that number of days after 1 Jan 1960. Which results in a value way past the SAS date limit of 31 Dec 20000 (yes 18,000 years in the future) which is currently as far as SAS treats values for dates.   So try this: data example; number=20081113; date = input(put(number,8. -L),yymmdd8.); format date date9.; run; the -L in the put just makes sure that the value from the put is Left justified just in case you use a format longer than 8 to create the text value for input.   However you should run proc contents on your data before running the step to make sure the value is 1)numeric and 2) does not already have some format like yymmdd associated. Depending on how you read the file the value might already be a date.   Dot = Missing data and you would have had an "invalid data" message in the log with some note about the invalid value. * means the "value" can't be displayed with the format chosen. With "dates" that usually means you have a year value greater than 9999 which is the most that SAS will display. Yes I said you can have values up to year 20000. But SAS doesn't have any format to display anything after 31DEC9999. Not really expecting much actual use for year 10K yet. ... View more