You need to show us your error messages, and give us more details about the data.

It sounds like some of your variables are numeric and others are character; that might be the problem. The format assigned to a SAS date value stored in a numeric variable does not affect how that variable is used in calculations.

In the code below, the line "dc{4} date_base dateyear1 dateyear2 dateyear3;" is after the run statement, and that will cause an error.

-- Jack Hamilton jfh@alumni.stanford.org videtis illam spirare libertatis auram

On Sep 6, 2008, at 12:14 pm, hua gang wrote:

> Thanks for reply, Dan. > > I used the following to compute the difference between yearsly > dates, only my first date variable, "date_base" has different format > like, 03JUN08. Because of it, the computation didn't work. Once I > got ride of date_base," and datedif0 it worked perfectly. So, this > is the reason for me to try to convert "date_base", but I can't find > a way to do it right away. > > Thanks again for your help. > > Hua > > array > arraydd{4} datediff0 datediff1 datediff2 datediff3;seth4;do > last_date= > j=i; > dd{i}= > j=j-i=2to4;.;.;dountil((last_date ne .) or (dc{i} = .));1;ifdc{j} > ne .thenlast_date=j;elseifj=1thenleave;end;/* only need to do a diff > here since SAS dates count days from a set point */ > ifnmiss(last_date,dc{i})=0thendd{i}=dc{i}-dc{last_date};end;dropi j; > *last_date;run; > dc{4} date_base dateyear1 dateyear2 dateyear3; > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Daniel Nordlund <djnordlund@VERIZON.NET> > To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Sent: Saturday, September 6, 2008 1:56:51 PM > Subject: Re: convert date format > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf >> Of hua >> gang >> Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 10:48 AM >> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> Subject: Re: convert date format >> >> Thanks for comment. Not for display purpose, I wanted to convert >> all dates in the >> same format for computational purpose. >> In my current data set, some dates are in one format, and others >> are in different >> format. >> >> Hua >> > > But that was Jack's point. If you are using SAS dates (and if you > aren't, you should), it doesn't matter if they are formatted > differently, no conversion is necessary. The only exception would > be if you both SAS dates and SAS datetimes. In that case you will > need to convert the datetimes to dates (or dates to datetimes), and > for that you would use the datepart() function (or dhms() function). > > Hope this is helpful, > > Dan > > Daniel Nordlund > Bothell, WA USA