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LonelySoul
LonelySoul

Reputation: 1232

Format Change in SAS

I know how to change the format of variables through data step like following.

data want;
  set have;
  format abc date9.;
run;

But if the format change requires converting from Character to Numeric then to Date involves following code with creation of new variable which I want to avoid.

data want;
  set have;
  abc_1 = input(scan(abc,"1"),ddmmyy10.);
  format abc_1 date9.;
run;

Is it possible to avoid creation of new variable and change Character into Numeric and then Date9.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 454

Answers (1)

Joe
Joe

Reputation: 63434

You can cause a character variable to contain the DATE9. formatted date value, but you can't have it contain the underlying date value and show a format, no. 

abc = put(input(scan(abc,'1'),ddmmyy10.),date9.);

However, it won't be a numeric with a date format. To do that, you have to create a new variable. You can cause it to be written to the dataset with the same name;

data want;
  set have;
  abc_1 = input(scan(abc,"1"),ddmmyy10.);
  format abc_1 date9.;
  drop abc;
  rename abc_1=abc;
run;

but it still technically creates a new variable (even though you don't really see that in the output).

Upvotes: 2

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