Does EXCEL really think the field is a date? That is has EXCEL converted the value to "excel date"?

On 5/12/10, Mark S. <marksmolkin@gmail.com> wrote: > Every so often I encounter a problem reading in a date field from Excel into > SAS using proc import, in that it makes the date a character field. The > problem is solved by going through each cell of the date field in the Excel > file and both adding then immediately removing a manufactured blank space. > After this is done for all cells in the field, I can read it into SAS OK as > numeric. Note that there are no blank spaces in the field initially that are > the cause of the problem, and this is not the result of guessingrows or other > option being necessary. Any ideas what the cause might be and a quicker > solution? THanks! > > Mark >