I have "locked" this discussion and awarded some Helpful answers that addressed at least two of the specific questions.  If you're reading this and find that it doesn't answer your specific query, create a new topic with your own example data and what you're trying to achieve.  SAS can transform character data to any numeric (date, datetime, and so on) and vice versa.  This blog also contains some helpful advice for using PUT and INPUT to convert values. ... View more