CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sas
Sandra Guerrero
Sandra Guerrero

Reputation: 323

COMPRESS operates in a different way (proc sql and step data)

I am working is SAS guide 7.1 and I need to run a process with proc sql but don't work well, though it work well with step data. The folliwing code replicate the issue

data test;
input date;
datalines;
20140101
;
run;

data test2;
set test;
date1 = input(compress(date),yymmdd10.);
format date1 date9.;
run;

The output enter image description here

Code with proc sql:

proc sql;
    create table test3 as select
         *,
    input(compress(date),yymmdd10.) format date9. as date1
from test;
quit;

The error message:

Function COMPRESS requires a character expression as argument 1. Why COMPRESS operates in a different way with both step data and proc sql?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2728

Answers (1)

Tom
Tom

Reputation: 51611

The compress() function is operating the same way.

But PROC SQL does not do automatic type conversion the way that a data step will. Look at the notes from your data step.

207  data test2;
208  set test;
209  date1 = input(compress(date),yymmdd10.);
210  format date1 date9.;
211  run;

NOTE: Numeric values have been converted to character values at the places given by:
      (Line):(Column).
      209:24

Just tell SAS explicitly that you want to convert the number 20,140,101 to the string '20140101' and then convert that string into a date value.

input(put(date,z8.),yymmdd8.)

Upvotes: 2

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