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Paper HW08for Advanced Analytics (http://analytics.ncsu.edu).

How to Read, Write, and Manipulate SAS® Dates

Jenine Milum, Atlanta, GA

ABSTRACT
No matter how long you’ve been programming in SAS, using and manipulating dates still seems to require effort.
Learn all about SAS dates, the different ways they can be presented, and how to make them useful. This paper
includes excellent examples in dealing with raw input dates, functions to manage dates, and outputting SAS dates
into other formats. Included are all the date information you will need: date and time functions, Informats, formats,
and arithmetic operations.

WHAT IS A SAS DATE?

A date is unique within SAS programming. It is neither a character value nor a typical numeric. It is a special case of
a numeric variable. In other words, a SAS date is a special representation of a calendar date.
Unlike dates in many other languages, SAS has a specific numeric value assigned to each day. The starting point
for all SAS dates is January 1st, 1960 and is represented as day zero (0). All previous and subsequent dates are
represented with numeric values plus (+) or minus (-) from this starting point. The simplicity of the approach is there
will never be a point in the past or future that can not be represented by a number.

December 30, 1959 ÍÎ -2

December 31, 1959 ÍÎ -1
January 1, 1960 ÍÎ 0
January 2, 1960 ÍÎ 1
January 3, 1960 ÍÎ 2
----
January 23, 1963 ÍÎ 1118
Today Nov 5, 2007 ÍÎ 17475

How to Test a Date

There will be times you may want to test a date to see what date we know and its corresponding SAS date.

Data _null_;

Today = date();

Testdate = ’23jan63’d;

firstdate = ’01jan1960’d;

Put ‘Log shows: ‘ today testdate firstdate;

Run;

Log shows: 17475 1118 0

Assigning and setting a date is done by one of the 2 methods above. Either a 2 digit year or a 4 digit year are
acceptable. The main point is the quote marks followed immediately by a d. This notation allows SAS to know the
contents inside the quotes are a date.

CONVERTING A TEXT DATE TO SAS DATE - INFORMATS

Often the dates we’ll be using in our programming comes to us in the form of a character value from a text field.
There are several ways to let SAS know the value is really a date and allow SAS to convert it into true SAS date.
Utilizing SAS informats is the method that is used.

-1-
 *Raw data as Input; *Character data as Input;

data my_birthday; data _null_; set my_birthday

infile cards; sas_date = input(var1,mmddyy10.);

input var1 mmddyy10.; run;

cards;

01/23/1963
;

run;

These examples work for all versions of SAS. It takes the information from text and tells SAS the information is a
date in a month-month, day-day, year-year format for a length of 10. SAS assumes the slashes (/), or other
acceptable separation character, is included in the length of 10.

SAS INFORMATS
Below are some of the more common SAS date Informats and the text values they will convert. These informats are
valid for all SAS versions.
INPUT INFORMAT
01/23/1963 ÍÎ mmddyy10.
1/23/1963 ÍÎ mmddyy10.
01/23/63 ÍÎ mmddyy8.
1/23/63 ÍÎ mmddyy8.
January 23,1963 ÍÎ worddate20.
jan 23, 1963 ÍÎ worddate12.
23jan1963 ÍÎ date9.
23jan63 ÍÎ date7.
23-jan-1963 ÍÎ date11.
01-23-63 ÍÎ mmddyy8.
19630123 ÍÎ yymmdd8.

In V9 of SAS, all the above date text values can be converted to SAS utilizing just one Informat: anydtdte15.

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SYSTEMS DATES
There are many situations where a date needs to be dynamic. SAS provides several opportunities to extract a date
from the system you are running. Below are a few of the system dates.

data _null_;

a = date();

b = today();

c = "&sysdate"d;

d = "&sysdate9"d;

put ‘Log shows: ‘ a b c d;

run;

Log shows: 17475 17475 17475 17475

As you can see, each returns the same results. Although, &sysdate and &sysdate9 return the date the session
started, not necessarily the current date. The system dates are treated as macro variables and require residing
between double quotes with the d designation. Now you have a variable with a valid SAS date.

Date Functions
Because date variables are unique within SAS, they have their own set of functions. It may be you want to extract
something specific from a date while still maintaining it being a SAS date value. Such a situation would be if you
were interested in what day of the week a specific date occurred on. Below are a handful of date functions and what
results from utilizing them would produce.

data _null_;

my_birthday = '23jan63'd;

date1 = day(my_birthday);

date2 = month(my_birthday);

date3 = year(my_birthday);

date4 = qtr(my_birthday);

date5 = weekday(my_birthday);

put date1 date2 date3 date4 date5;

run;

Log shows:

23 1 1963 1 4

As you can see from the example above, the day function returns the day of the month, month function returns the
month of the year and the year function returns the 4 digit year. The qtr function returns the quarter of the year
where January - March are quarter 1, etc. The weekday function returns values 1 through 7 where day 1 is Sunday
and so on representing the 7 days of the week.

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Date Functions and Date Arithmetic
Being able to determine additional information from dates also is endeavored using special SAS date functions. You
may use them to determine the time between to intervals, alter a point in time by a duration of time, or and subtract
time intervals. Below are a few of them.

data _null_;

date = date();

my_birthday = '23jan63'd;

datedif2 = intck('month',my_birthday,date); * intck(‘interval’, from, to );

datedif3 = sum(date,-my_birthday); * sum(to,-from);

datedif1 = datdif(my_birthday,date,'act/act'); * datdif(from,to,’act/act’)

or ‘30/360’;

put ‘Log shows: ‘ datedif1 datedif2 datedif3;

run;

Log shows: 538 16357 16357

The intck function returns the number of “intervals” from one date to another. I this case, with the interval of Month,
th
it is the number of months from Nov 5 , 2007 to my birth.
The sum function, while very valid with other forms of numeric’s, also works with dates. As expected, it returns the
number of days between one date interval and another.
The datdif function, in this example using ‘act/act’ (actual/actual), returns the number of days between one point in
time and another point in time. The result here is the number of days from my birth to Nov 5th. 2007.
The intck function can be a very handy function while working on dates. Looking into this function further, below is
a handful of “intervals” and they’re returned results.

data _null_;

my_birthday = '23jan1963'd;

years = intck('year',my_birthday,date());

quarters = intck('qtr',my_birthday,date());

months = intck('month',my_birthday,date());

weeks = intck('week',my_birthday,date());

days = intck('day',my_birthday,date());

put ‘Log shows: ‘ years quarters months weeks days;

run;

Log shows: 44 176 529 2299 16092

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The results from the previous data step shows, in order, how many years, how many quarters, how many months,
how many weeks and how many days old I am. All of this with using just the one date function and altering the
“interval”.

Date Formats

Outputting dates from SAS is yet another ability of SAS to manipulate dates. Most people don’t know what today’s
date is in SAS. People need to be able to visualize what date is represented in one of the normal and acceptable
forms. Date formats are used to control the look and results of dates that are currently in SAS form. You can
presents dates in data fields, in report titles or labels. There are quite a few date formats. They may be easily
located in SAS Help and other SAS Documentation. Below are a few to give you a feel of how to use them.

data dates;

my_birthday = '23jan1963'd; * SAS date 1118;

date1 = put(my_birthday,mmddyy8.);

date2 = put(my_birthday,worddate15.);

date3 = put(my_birthday,monyy7.);

date4 = put(my_birthday,julian5.);

put date1 date2 date3 date4;

run;

Log Shows:

01/23/63 Jan 23, 1963 JAN1963 63023

The formats above clearly control the look of a SAS date. Even though the date being used above is the SAS date
1118, it is output in a form familiar to us all.

Warning signs of bad dates

There are always times when SAS dates aren’t manipulated properly. Signs of such occasions are null values ( . ) or
the occurrence of too many January 1st, 1960 values, meaning the date really returned a zero.

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A listing of most SAS Date Functions, Informats and Formats – All in one place!

Date and Time Functions

DATDIF returns the number of days JULDATE7 returns a seven-digit Julian

between two dates date from a SAS date value

DATE returns the current date as a SAS MDY returns a SAS date value from
date value month, day, and year values

DATEJUL converts a Julian date to a MINUTE returns the minute from a SAS
SAS date valueDATEPARTextracts the time or datetime value
date from a SAS datetime value
MONTH returns the month from a SAS
DATETIME returns the current date and date value
time of day as a SAS datetime value
QTR returns the quarter of the year
DAY returns the day of the month from from a SAS date value
a SAS date value
SECOND returns the second from a SAS
DHMS returns a SAS datetime value from time or datetime value
date, hour, minute, and seconds
TIME returns the current time of
HMS returns a SAS time value from dayTIMEPARTextracts a time value from
hour, minute, and seconds a SAS datetime value

HOUR returns the hour from a SAS time TODAY returns the current date as a
or datetime value SAS date valueWEEKDAYreturns the day
of the week from a SAS date value
INTCK returns the integer number of
time intervals in a given time span WEEKDAY returns an integer that
represents the day of the week, where
INTNX advances a date, time, or
1=Sunday, 2=Monday,…, 7=Saturday
datetime value by a given interval,
and returns a date, time, or datetime YEAR returns the year from a SAS date
valueJUL valueYRDIFreturns the difference in
years between two dates
DATE returns the Julian date from a
SAS date value YYQ returns a SAS date value from the
year and quarter

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Date Informats

DATEw. day, month abbreviation, and

year:

17oct91 ddMONyy
DATETIMEw.d date and time:
ddMONyy:hh:mm:ss
17oct91:14:45:32

DDMMYYw. day, month, year: ddmmyy,

dd/mm/yy,
17/10/91 dd-mm-yy, or dd mm yy
JULIANw. year and day of year (Julian
dates): yyddd

91290

MMDDYYw. month, day, year: mmddyy,

mm/dd/yy,
10/17/91 mm-dd-yy, or mm dd yy
MONYYw. month abbreviation and
year

Oct91

TIMEw. dhours, minutes, seconds:

hh:mm:ss
14:45:32or hours, minutes: hh:mm.

YYMMDDw. year, month, day: yymmdd,

yy/mm/dd,
91/10/17 yy-mm-dd, or yy mm dd
YYQw. year and quarter of year:
yyQq
91Q4

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Date Formats

DATEw. day,month abbreviation,year: MONYYw. month abbreviation and

ddMONyy year:

17oct91 OCT91

DAYw. day of month MONyyQTRw. quarter of year

17 4

DDMMYYw. day,month,year: dd/mm/yy QTRw. quarter of year

17/10/91 4

DOWNAMEw. name of day of the week QTRRw. quarter in Roman numerals

Thursday IV

JULDAYw. day of year WEEKDATEw. day-of-week, month-name

dd,yy
290
Thursday, October 17, 1991
JULIANw. year and day of year:
yyddd WEEKDATXw. day-of-week, dd month-name
yy
91290
Thursday, 17 October 1991
MMDDYYw. month, day, year:
mm/dd/yy WEEKDAYw. day of week

10/17/91 5

MMYYw. month and year: mmMyy WORDDATEw. month-name dd, yy

10M1991 October 17, 1991

MMYYCw. month and year: mm:yy WORDDATXw. dd month-name yy

10:1991 17 October 1991

MMYYDw. month and year: mm-yy YEARw. year

10-1991 1991

MMYYPw. month and year: mm.yy YYMMw. year and month: yyMmm

10.1991 1991M10

MMYYSw. month and year: mm/yy YYMMCw. year and month: yy:mm

10/1991 1991:10

MMYYNw. month and year: mmyy YYMMDw. year and month: yy- mm

101991 1991-10

MONNAMEw. name of month YYMMPw. year and month: yy.mm

October 1991.10

MONTHw. month of year YEARw. year

10 1991

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 YYMMw. year and month: yyMmm YYQDw. year and quarter: yy-q

1991M10 1991-4

YYMMCw. year and month: yy:mm YYQPw. year and quarter: yy.q

1991:10 1991.4

YYMMDw. year and month: yy- mm YYQSw. year and quarter: yy/q

1991-10 1991/4

YYMMPw. year and month: yy.mm YYQNw. year and quarter: yyq

1991.10 19914

YYMMSw. year and month: yy/mm YQRw. Yyear and quarter in Roman

1991/10 1991

YYMMNw. year and month: yymm QIVnumerals: yyQrr

199110 YYQRCw. year and quarter in Roman

YYMONw. year and month 1991:IV numerals: yy:rr

abbreviation:
YYQRDw. year and quarter in Roman
1991OCT
1991-IV numerals: yy-rr
YYMMDDw. year, month, day:
YYQRPw. year and quarter in Roman
yy/mm/dd
1991.IV numerals: yy.rr
91/10/17
YYQRSw. year and quarter in Roman
YYQw. year and quarter: yyQq
1991/IV numerals: yy/rr
91Q4
YYQRNw. year and quarter in Roman
YYQCw. year and quarter: yy:q
1991IV numerals: yyrr
1991:4

CONCLUSION
Presented here are the most common tools used while working with dates in SAS programming. Quite frequently,
there is more than one valid method to working with dates. It is best to understand dates and how to manipulate
them. They are part of nearly all programming efforts in one capacity or another.

REFERENCES
SASS 9.1.3 Help and Documentation “Your Complete Guide to Syntax, How To, Examples, Procedures, Concepts,
What’s New, and Tutorials.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A big “Thank you” to several friends that helped me prepare this paper and presentation. A special thanks to my
friends in Cameroon and Kenya for allowing me to practice this presentation in their attendance

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CONTACT INFORMATION
Your comments and questions are valued and encouraged. Contact the author at:
Jenine Milum
The Ginn Group (CDC)
Atlanta, Georgia
E-mail: [email protected]
SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS
Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration.
Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

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