I recently found that SAS has its own "black box" when it detects partial date. The reason I call it 'black box' is that we don't know what it does when it reads in partial date. Example 1: 1) data test; a= "201201"; run; data test2; set test; b= input(a, yymmdd8.); run; Result: b=22250 (This is equivalent to 2020Dec01), which means SAS automatically reads the date as yymmdd6. when it can't find the last 2 digits. Example 2: data test; a= "201301"; run; data test2; set test; b= input(a, yymmdd8.); run; Result: b= . (missing). Clearly, "201301" can't be read in as 'yymmdd6.' because there is no 13th month in a year. Then SAS finally gives it up and assigns missing value. How do we make sure SAS doesn't do this auto conversion? Also who knows what this 'black box' actually does besides this situation? Many thanks!
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