how to read date and time from txt file using sas - sas

I'm very new to SAS and I'm trying to read a txt file that contains date and time. The file is shown in the following figure
I believe I have tried all the possible options that I can think of to read the file but the output is still in numeric form. The following is the code I'm using
data wb_bg_1619;
infile "C:\Users\daizh\Desktop\Ren\SAS\wb_bg_0215.txt" firstobs=3 missover;
informat DATE DATE7. TIME TIME5. ;
input DATE TIME BG;
run;
proc print data=wb_bg_1619;
run;
The output looks like this

You've used an informat to automatically convert a date stored as text into a numeric SAS date format, which is the number of days since Jan 1 1960. To display that in a human readable format, you need to use a regular format. Add the following to the top or bottom of your code:
format date date9.
time time.
;
This changes how the data is displayed to you, but does not change how SAS works with it. As far as SAS is concerned, a date is only a number. You could run the rest of your program without ever using a format and get the right numbers and calculations with it if you wanted to, but that sure makes troubleshooting hard.
To remember the difference between a format and informat:
informats are for inputs
formats are for you

Related

Reading dates into sas from premade .dat dataset

Being asked to read in and format dates in a premade sas file. Question is as follows:
Read in BIRTHDATE and DEATHDATE to recognize them as dates. (Create new variables called birthdate2 and deathdate2 respectively).
So, i've created a copy of the dataset:
data presidents_datefix;
set myfolder.presidents1;
run;
And am trying to use the input function to read the birth and deathdates in:
data presidents_datefix;
infile "presidents1"
input Presidents $ 1-38 #2 Birthdate date9. Deathdate date9.;
run;
Before running this datastep, the presidents1_datefix viewtable loads just fine. After the datastep, I get a warning message that reads:
"WARNING: The data set WORK.PRESIDENTS_DATEFIX may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0 observations and 0 variables.
WARNING: Data set WORK.PRESIDENTS_DATEFIX was not replaced because this step was stopped."
Then, when opening the viewtable, no observations exist anymore. I also get a series of error messages that say
ERROR 23-2: invalid option name
for every value of the input function.
Would really appreciate some help figuring out what I've done wrong and how I can fix it! Thank you!

Generating many tables from a single table in SAS

I have a table in SAS which contains the format information I want. I want to bin this data into the categories given.
What I don't know how to do is create either an xform or a format file from the data.
An example table looks like this:
TxtLabel Type FmtName label Hlo count
. I FAC1f 0 O 1
1996 I FAC1f 1 2
1997 I FAC1f 2 3
I want to date all years in a different data set as after 1997 OR before 1996.
The problem is that I know how to do this by hard coding it, but these files changes the numbers each time so I'm hoping to use the information in the table to generate the bins rather than hard code them.
How do I go about binning by data using a column from another dataset for my categorization?
Edit
I have two data sets, one which looks like the one I have included and one which has a column titled "YEAR". I want to bin the second data set using the categories from the first. In this case there are two available years in TxtLabel. There are multiple tables like this, I'm looking at how to generate PROC Format code from the table, rather than hard coding the values.
This should run to create the desired format
Proc FORMAT CNTLIN=MyCustomFormatControlData;
run;
You can then use it in a DATA Step, or apply it to a column in a data set.
Binning the data might be construed as 'data set splitting' but your question does not make it clear if that is so. Generic arbitrary splitting is often done with one of these techniques:
wall paper source code resolved from macro variables populated from information garnered in a Proc SQL or Proc FREQ step
dynamic data splitting using hash object for grouping records in memory, and saved to a data set with an .output() call.
Sample code for explicit binning
data want0 want1 want2 want3 want4 want5 wantOther;
set have;
* explicit wall paper;
select (put(year,FAC1f.));
when ('0') output want0;
when ('1') output want1;
when ('2') output want2;
when ('3') output want3;
when ('4') output want4;
when ('5') output want5;
otherwise output wantOther;
run;
This is the construct that source code generated by macro can produce, and requires
one pass to determine the when/output lines that are to be generated
a second pass to apply the lines of code that were generated.
If this is the data processing that you are attempting:
do some research (plenty of info out there)
write some code
make a new question if you get errors you can't resolve
Proc FORMAT
Proc FORMAT has a CNTLIN option for specifying a data set containing the format information. The structure and values expected of the Input Control Data Set (that CNTLIN) is described in the Output Control Data Set documentation. Some of the important control data columns are:
FMTNAME
specifies a character variable whose value is the format or informat name.
LABEL
specifies a character variable whose value is associated with a format or an informat.
START
specifies a character variable that gives the range's starting value.
END
specifies a character variable that gives the range's ending value.
As the requirements of the custom format to be created get more sophisticated you will need to have more information variables in the input control data set.

Finding dates between two dates not working

I have a dataset where date_occur is in MMDDYY10 format (looks like 10/23/2014). I want all dates in FY17 which is 10/01/2016-09/30/2017. The following code is not working for some reason. Why!!
I'm not getting any error or warning messages I'm just getting an empty table.
Thanks in advance
data fy17;
set y16_17;
where date_occur between 10/01/2016 and 09/30/2017;
run;
The Log says:
NOTE: There were 0 observations read from the data set WORK.Y16_17.
WHERE (date_occur>=0.0001487357 and date_occur<=0.0049603175);
I'm thinking SAS is not understanding that date_occur is in mmddyy10 format. The internet has code like
where date_occur between '10/01/2016'd and '09/30/2017'd;
I tried this and it did not work either.
Your 'dates' are being interpreted as numeric expressions, and none of the date values in your table lie in the resulting range. Use date literals instead:
data fy17;
set y16_17;
where date_occur between '01oct2016'd and '30sep2017'd;
run;
You can only use date. format (ddmmmyyyy / ddmmmyy) when specifying date literals.

How to convert date in SAS to YYYYMMDD number format

In test_1 table, the my_date field is a "DATE9." format.
I would like to convert it to a pure numeric format (number length 8) which is of the form YYYYMMDD.
I would also like to do this in a proc sql statement ideally.
Here's what I have so far.
Clearly I need something to manipulate the my_date field.
rsubmit;
proc sql;
CREATE TABLE test_2 AS
SELECT
my_date
FROM
test_1
;
quit;
endrsubmit;
FYI: I am finding it quite difficult to understand the various methods in SAS.
To clarify, the field should actually be a number, not a character field, nor a date.
If you want the field to store the value 20141231 for 31DEC2014, you can do this:
proc sql;
create table want as
select input(put(date,yymmddn8.),8.) as date_num
from have;
quit;
input(..) turns something into a number, put(..) turns something into a string. In this case, we first put it with your desired format (yymmddn8. is YYYYMMDD with no separator), and then input it with 8., which is the length of the string we are reading in.
In general, this should not be done; storing dates as numerics of their string representation is a very bad idea. Try to stay within the date formats, as they are much easier to work with once you learn them, and SAS will happily work with other databases to use their date types as well. If you want the "20141231" representation (to put it to a text file, for example), make it a character variable.
Don't.
You lose the ability to use built in SAS functions for date calculations.
SAS stores dates as numbers, 0 being Jan 1, 1960 and increments from there. Formats are used to display the formats as desired for reporting and presentation.

Converting number into dates

I have this number 90724 which is actually 24/07/2009, how can output the number to that date format. Another example 100821 should 21/08/2010
data want
set testData;
format date ddmmyyyy.;
run;
Cheers
You really need to learn about Informats. Another good introductory source is this UCLA site
What you really needed to specify is the format in which you have the dates - using the informat yymmdd6. It uses a YearCutOff option to determine which century a 2-digit year falls into see Adjusting Dates in a New Century & YEARCUTOFF= System Option
Note: The default is 1920 which spans the 100-year range between 1920 and 2019 - if your dates are outside this range then set the appropritate cutoff value using OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=nnnn;
data test;
dateNumber=100821; ProperDate=input(put(dateNumber,6.), yymmdd6.); output;/*ProperDate= 21AUG2010*/
dateNumber=90724; ProperDate=input(put(dateNumber,6.) , yymmdd6.); output;/*ProperDate=24JUL2009*/
format ProperDate date9.;
run;