The Essential Guide To SAS Dates And Times Derek Morgan

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SAS Press

The Essential Guide to

SAS Dates and Times
®

Derek P. Morgan

The correct bibliographic citation for this manual is as follows: Morgan, Derek P. 2006. The Essential Guide
®
to SAS Dates and Times. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc.
®

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times
Copyright © 2006, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA
ISBN-13: 978-1-59047-884-4
ISBN-10: 1-59047-884-3
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................vii
1

Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS ................................................ 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6

How Does It Work? (January 1, 1960 and Midnight as Zero) .......................... 2
Internal Representation (Storage as Integers or Real Numbers).......................... 2
External Representation (Basic Format Concepts)............................................. 3
Date and Time as Numeric Constants in SAS.................................................. 3
System Options Related to Dates ................................................................... 5
Length and Numeric Requirements for Date, Time, and Datetime .................... 12

Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times
as We Know Them............................................................................. 15
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4

How Do I Use a Format? ............................................................................ 16
So Just How Many Built-in Formats Are There for Dates and Times?................. 18
A Quick Note About Date Formats, Justification, and ODS............................. 19
Detailed Discussion of Each Format ............................................................. 19
2.4.1 Date Formats .................................................................................. 19
2.4.2 Time Formats .................................................................................. 43
2.4.3 Datetime Formats ............................................................................ 47
2.5 Creating Custom Date Formats Using the VALUE Statement of
PROC FORMAT ........................................................................................ 54
2.6 Creating Custom Date Formats Using the PICTURE Statement of
PROC FORMAT ........................................................................................ 56
2.7 The PUT( ) Function and Formats.................................................................. 60

iv Table of Contents

Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time,
and Datetime Values.......................................................................... 63
3.1 Avoiding the Two-Digit Year Trap................................................................ 64
3.2 Using Informats ......................................................................................... 65
3.3 The INFORMAT Statement.......................................................................... 66
3.3.1 Using Informats with the INPUT Statement .......................................... 66
3.3.2 Informats with the INPUT( ) Function................................................... 67
3.3.3 When the Informat Does Not Match the Data Being Read.................... 68
3.4 Listing and Discussion of Informats .............................................................. 70
3.4.1 Date Informats ................................................................................ 70
3.4.2 Time Informats ................................................................................ 75
3.4.3 Datetime Informats .......................................................................... 77
3.4.4 ANYDT and Its Variants ................................................................... 77

Date and Time Functions .................................................................... 85
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4

Current Date and Time Functions................................................................. 86
Extracting Pieces from SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values ......................... 86
Creating Dates, Times, and Datetimes from Numbers .................................... 89
Calculating Intervals .................................................................................. 93
4.4.1 Calculating Elapsed Time with DATDIF( ) and YRDIF() .......................... 93
4.4.2 The Basics of SAS Intervals............................................................... 96
4.4.3 The Interval Calculation Functions: INTCK and INTNX ......................... 98

Deeper into Dates and Times with SAS ............................................. 107
5.1 Macro Variables and Dates...................................................................... 108
5.1.1 Automatic Macro Variables ............................................................ 108
5.1.2 Putting Dates into Titles .................................................................. 109
5.1.4 Using %SYSFUNC() to Create Dates, Times, and Datetimes in
Macro Variables ........................................................................... 110
5.1.4 Using CALL SYMPUT( ) and SYMGET() with Dates, Times, and
Datetimes ..................................................................................... 111
5.2 Shifting SAS Date and Time Intervals ......................................................... 113
5.3 Graphing Dates ...................................................................................... 122

Table of Contents v

5.4 The Basics of PROC EXPAND ................................................................... 127
5.4.1 Capabilities of PROC EXPAND ....................................................... 127
5.4.2 Using PROC EXPAND to Convert to a Higher Frequency ................... 129
5.4.3 Using PROC EXPAND to Convert to a Lower Frequency..................... 130
5.4.4 Using PROC EXPAND to Interpolate Missing Values .......................... 132
5.4.5 The OBSERVED= Option for the CONVERT Statement in
PROC EXPAND............................................................................. 133
5.5 International Date, Time, and Datetime Formats and Informats...................... 136
5.5.1 “EUR” Formats and Informats.......................................................... 137
5.5.2 “NL” Formats................................................................................ 140
5.5.3 Specific Language Date Formats and Informats................................. 143
5.6 Other Software and Their Dates (Excel, Oracle, DB2).................................. 144
Appendix A Quick Reference Guide to SAS Date, Time, and Datetime
Formats ................................................................................ 149
Index ..................................................................................................... 151

Acknowledgments
Many people helped to make this book happen. I shouldn’t get all of the credit.
Firstly, I’d like to give special thanks to Patsy Poole and Julie Platt from SAS Press.
Their encouragement and enthusiasm kept me going. I owe a lot to Art Carpenter,
SAS guru. This book would not exist without his interest, patience, and gentle
direction. Another big thank you goes to Caroline Brickley, Joan Stout Knight,
Candy Farrell, and Patrice Cherry, all from SAS Press, who turned my manuscript into
a real book.
Thanks to Andrew Karp for introducing me to the world of PROC EXPAND, and to
Mike Forno at SAS Institute’s Technical Support for answering my questions on it. I
greatly
appreciate
the
American
Public
Transportation
Association
(http://www.apta.com,) who allowed me to use data that they compiled from their
member transit agencies for the PROC EXPAND examples, and Erik Tilanus for
sharing some of his knowledge to help improve the content of this book.
I’d also like to thank the technical reviewers from SAS Institute, Richard Bell, Chris
DeHart, Rick Langston, and Kim Wilson for their thoughtful comments and corrections,
as well as Michelle Schlude from SAS Institute’s Technical Support for helping to iron
out the more sticky points of intervals.
Closer to home, I want to acknowledge the Divisions of Biostatistics and Statistical
Genomics at Washington University, especially Drs. D.C. Rao and Michael Province
for their moral support, Jeanne Cashman for proofing the final draft, and Avril
Adelman for giving me a SAS user’s perspective.
Last, but most certainly not least, my wife Billie, and son Terec deserve a great deal of
thanks for letting me spend a good number of my evenings and weekends with
Microsoft Word and SAS instead of them.

viii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS
1.1 How Does It Work? (January 1, 1960 and Midnight as Zero) ................................ 2
1.2 Internal Representation (Storage as Integers or Real Numbers)................................ 2
1.3 External Representation (Basic Format Concepts)................................................... 3
1.4 Date and Time as Numeric Constants in SAS........................................................ 3
1.5 System Options Related to Dates ......................................................................... 5
1.6 Length and Numeric Requirements for Date, Time, and Datetime...........................12

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

In the years that I’ve been working with SAS, and teaching students how to use it, I’ve noticed
two things about it that consistently confuse programmers who are new to SAS. First, there is
the “implied” DO-UNTIL (end-of-file) of the DATA step, and then there is the concept of dates
(and times) within SAS. I’ve seen many misuses of character strings masquerading as dates
and/or times over the past years. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to
the power and flexibility of dates and times in SAS. There is much more than just having
numbers representing date and time values in SAS. We’ll start with the basics in the first three
chapters, and then progress to some more advanced uses of those date and time values.

1.1 How Does It Work? (January 1, 1960 and Midnight
as Zero)
SAS has three separate counters that keep track of dates and times. The date counter started
at zero on January 1, 1960. Any day before 1/1/1960 is a negative number, and any day
after that is a positive number. Every day at midnight, the date counter is increased by one.
The time counter runs from zero (at midnight) to 86,399.9999, when it resets to zero. The last
counter is the datetime counter. This is the number of seconds since midnight, January 1,
1960. Why January 1, 1960? One story has it that the founders of SAS wanted to use the
approximate birth date of the IBM 370 system, and they chose January 1, 1960 as an easyto-remember approximation.
Many database programs maintain their dates as a value relative to some fixed point in time.
This makes calculating durations easy, and working with dates stored in this fashion becomes
a matter of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

1.2 Internal Representation (Storage as Integers or Real
Numbers)
SAS stores dates as integers, while the datetime and time counters are stored as real numbers
to account for fractional seconds. The origin of the algorithm used for SAS date processing
comes from a Computerworld article dated January 14, 1980 by Dr. Bhairav Joshi of SUNYGeneseo. The earliest date that SAS can handle with this algorithm is January 1, 1582. The
latest date is far enough into the future that four digits can’t display the year.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS

1.3 External Representation (Basic Format Concepts)
The dates as stored by SAS don’t do us much good in the real world. The statement “I was
born on –242” won’t mean much to anyone else. On the other hand, “May 4, 1959” can
easily be translated into something that most people can understand. SAS has a built-in facility
to perform automatic translation between SAS numbers and dates and times as understood by
the rest of the world. This automatic translation is performed with what are called formats.
Formats display the date, time, and datetime values in a fashion that is much more easily
understood. Formats do not change the values themselves; they are just a way to display the
values in any output.
What happens if you have a date or time and want to translate it into SAS date and time
values? SAS has another built-in facility which performs the reverse translation, from the dates
and times we understand and use to the values that SAS stores. This translation is done using
informats. Informats translate what they are given into the values that are stored in SAS
variables. We will discuss formats and informats in detail in Chapters 2 and 3, because there
are dozens of them.

1.4 Date and Time as Numeric Constants in SAS
We’ve talked about internal and external representation of dates and times. How do you put a
specific date into a program as a constant? Formats change the way the values are displayed
in output, so you can’t use them. Informats translate what they are given, so you could use
them, but then you’d need to use the INPUT( ) function (see Section 3.3.2), which takes a
value you give it and translates it with an INFORMAT. That’s very inefficient. Look at the
following program (Example 1.4.1) to see how date, time, and datetime constants are written
into a SAS program. Take note of the quotation marks around the values for date, time, and
datetime, and the letters that follow each closing quote.
The quotes are used to create a literal value. You may use a pair of single or double quotes to
specify the literal value. The only difference between using single and double quotes around
the date would be macro expansion. The most important part of a date constant is the letter
that immediately follows the last quote. The letter “D” stands for date, “T” for time, and “DT”
for datetime, and you can use either upper or lowercase. If you put a date in quotes without
the letter at the end, you will create a character variable, not a numeric variable with a date,
time, or datetime value. The difference might not become apparent until you try to do
something with the variable you created that involves a calculation. Don’t forget your “D”, “T”,

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

or “DT”! Example 1.4.1 demonstrates how date constants are defined and then automatically
converted to SAS date values.
Example 1.4.1 Date Constants
DATA date_constants;
date = ‘04aug2004’d; /* This is a date constant */
time = ‘07:15:00’t;
/* This is a time constant */
datetime = ‘07aug1904:21:31:00’dt; /* This is a datetime constant */
run;
TITLE “Unformatted Constants”;
PROC PRINT DATA=date_constants;
VAR date time datetime;
run;
TITLE “Formatted Constants”;
PROC PRINT DATA=date_constants;
VAR date time datetime;
FORMAT date worddate32. time timeampm9. datetime datetime32.;
the constants */
run;

/* Format

Here is the resulting output:
Unformatted Constants
date

time

datetime

16287 26100 -1748226540

Formatted Constants
date

time

datetime

August 4, 2004 7:15 AM 07AUG1904:21:31:00

Without formats, you can see that the date constants we created are stored as their actual SAS
date, time, and datetime values. They don’t make much sense until you format them.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS

1.5 System Options Related to Dates
SAS has several system options; these affect the way that the SAS job or session works. There
are four important options that affect dates: YEARCUTOFF, DATESTYLE, DATE/NODATE, and
DTRESET.

YEARCUTOFF
On December 31, 1999, people were holding their breath. The majority of dates stored on
computers allowed only two digits for the year, and assumed that the first two digits were (and
would always be) “19”. This didn’t account for storage of dates where the first two digits of
the year were not “19”, and thus, the “Y2K problem” was born. How does SAS handle twodigit years? When is a two-digit year in the 1900’s, and when is it in the 2000’s? What if
you have old data and all those dates need to be in the 1800’s? What does SAS do? The
answer is: YOU tell SAS how to handle two-digit years. There is a system option called
YEARCUTOFF that lets you specify a 100-year span for two-digit years. It applies to all dates
with two-digit years that you give SAS. This means that it applies to: date constants, date
values read from raw data with the INPUT statement, and date values that are created from
character strings with the INPUT( ) function. The YEARCUTOFF system option does not affect
values that are stored as SAS date values, regardless of their display, so once you create a
date or datetime value, YEARCUTOFF no longer has any effect on it.
The system default is 1920. This means that any two-digit year from 20 to 99 will be
translated as 1920 to 1999, while years from 00 to 19 will be translated as 2000 to 2019.
The syntax is:
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF= (y)yyyy;

/* (y)yyyy can be from 1582 to 19900 */

Let’s use a series of OPTIONS statements and date constants to illustrate. In the following
program, three datasets are created with four identical date constants that use two-digit years.
The only thing that changes is the value of YEARCUTOFF. Example 1.5.1 shows how
YEARCUTOFF translates two-digit year values using date constants.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Example 1.5.1 How the YEARCUTOFF System Option Works
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1920;

/* SAS System default */

DATA yearcutoff1;
date1 = “15JUL06”d;
date2 = “27FEB48”d;
date3 = “04may69”d;
date4 = “10dec95”d;
RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=yearcutoff1;
FORMAT date1-date4 mmddyy10.;
RUN;

Here is the resulting output:
date1

date2

date3

date4

07/15/2006

02/27/1948

05/04/1969

12/10/1995

With the default of 1920 in effect, you can see that the first date is placed in the 21st century,
while the others remain in the 20th. Let’s move the 100-year period back by 80 years and see
what happens.
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1840;
DATA yearcutoff2;
date1 = “15JUL06”d;
date2 = “27FEB48”d;
date3 = “04may69”d;
date4 = “10dec95”d;
RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=yearcutoff2;
FORMAT date1-date4 mmddyy10.;
RUN;

Chapter 1: Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS

Here is the resulting output:
date1

date2

date3

date4

07/15/1906

02/27/1848

05/04/1869

12/10/1895

Now the first date is in the 20th century, and the others are in the 19th. Note that the only
change to the code is in the OPTIONS statement. The value of YEARCUTOFF is 1840 instead
of 1920. For the last part of this example, we’ll set YEARCUTOFF to 1970, and use the same
date constants with two-digit years again.
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1970;
DATA yearcutoff3;
date1 = “15JUL06”d;
date2 = “27FEB48”d;
date3 = “04may69”d;
date4 = “10dec95”d;
RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=yearcutoff3;
FORMAT date1-date4 mmddyy10.;
RUN;

Here is the resulting output:
date1

date2

date3

date4

07/15/2006

02/27/2048

05/04/2069

12/10/1995

Once again, the only difference in the code is in the OPTIONS statement. Now the 100-year
range starts in 1970, which places every date except the last one in the 21st century.
As with many SAS system options, YEARCUTOFF is effective when it is encountered within the
program. If you have multiple OPTIONS statements that include YEARCUTOFF= in your
program, each one will affect all date constants, raw data, and date values created from
character strings with the INPUT( ) function until the next OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF= statement
changes the 100-year range. As an example, if you were to put the three programs in the
above example together in one file, the result would be the same, as long as you did not move
the OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF= statements.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

DATESTYLE
This system option is important if you are using any of the following informats: ANYDTDTE.,
ANYDTDTM., or ANYDTTME. DATESTYLE controls how SAS will translate dates that can be
interpreted in more than one way. This happens most often when you are using two-digit
years.
Assuming that the OPTIONS statement specifies YEARCUTOFF=1920, does 11-01-06 mean
November 1, 2006, January 6, 2011, or January 11, 2006?
DATESTYLE allows you to tell SAS how to interpret cases like this. You may specify any one of
the following:
Table 1.5.1 Values for DATESTYLE=

MDY

Sets the default order as month, day,
year. “11-01-06” would be translated
as November 1, 2006

YDM

Sets the default order as year, day,
month. “11-01-06” would be
translated as June 1, 2011

MYD

Sets the default order as month, year,
day. “11-01-06” would be translated
as November 6, 2001

DMY

Sets the default order as day, month,
year. “11-01-06” would be translated
as January 11, 2006

YMD

Sets the default order as year, month,
day. “11-01-06” would be translated
as January 6, 2011

DYM

Sets the default order as day, year,
month. “11-01-06” would be
translated as June 11, 2001

LOCALE
(default)

Sets the default value according to the LOCALE= system option. When the default value for the
LOCALE= system option is “English_US”, this sets DATESTYLE to MDY. Therefore, by default, “1101-06” would be translated as November 1, 2006.

DATESTYLE can be set at SAS invocation, through an OPTIONS statement, in the configuration
file, or in the SAS Options window. The syntax is:
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=order;

/* order is one of the values from table 1.1 */

Example 1.5.2 demonstrates the effect of the different DATESTYLE values on a given character
string.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS

Example 1.5.2 How DATESTYLE Affects the ANYDTDTE. Informat
The following program goes through each of the possible values for DATESTYLE using the
same character string 11-01-06 as input. The log shown below the program will demonstrate
the differences.
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=mdy;
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=mdy, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=myd;
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=myd, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=ymd;
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=ymd, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=ydm;
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=ydm, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=dmy;
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=dmy, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=dym;
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=dym, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=locale; /* LOCALE=EN_US */
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT date anydtdte8.;
PUT “OPTIONS DATESTYLE=locale, so date=“ date mmddyy10.;
DATALINES;
11-01-06
;
RUN;

The Log
OPTIONS
OPTIONS
OPTIONS
OPTIONS
OPTIONS
OPTIONS
OPTIONS

DATESTYLE=mdy, so
DATESTYLE=myd, so
DATESTYLE=ymd, so
DATESTYLE=ydm, so
DATESTYLE=dmy, so
DATESTYLE=dym, so
DATESTYLE=locale,

date=11/01/2006
date=11/06/2001
date=01/06/2011
date=06/01/2011
date=01/11/2006
date=06/11/2001
so date=11/01/2006

As you can see, DATESTYLE can have an enormous effect when the ANYDTDTE. (or
ANYDTDTM. or ANYDTTM.) informats are used.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS

DATE/NODATE
By default, the DATE system option is in effect when you start SAS, which causes the date and
time that the SAS job (or session) started to appear on each page of the SAS log and SAS
output. These values are obtained from the operating system clock. If you are running SAS
interactively, then the date and time are printed only on the output, not the log. If you don’t
want the date and time to appear, use the NODATE system option. The syntax is:
OPTIONS NODATE;
If you’ve turned off DATE, then you can turn it back on with:
OPTIONS DATE;
Example 1.5.3 shows what happens to the title line printed by SAS when you use DATE and
NODATE. Remember that, by default, DATE is in effect when you start SAS.
Example 1.5.3 DATE/NODATE
This is a sample of a title line with the DATE system option:
The SAS System

17:20 Thursday, August 5, 2004

This is what NODATE does to that title line:
The SAS System

DTRESET
If the DATE option is enabled, SAS prints the date and time that the current SAS session
started. If you want a more accurate date and time on those pages, you can use the DTRESET
system option. This will cause SAS to get the date and time from the operating system clock
each time a page is written. That date and time will then be put on the page instead of the
time that the SAS job started. Since the time is displayed in hours and minutes, you will see it
change each minute only. The syntax is:
OPTIONS DTRESET;

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

1.6 Length and Numeric Requirements for Date, Time,
and Datetime
Since dates are stored as integers, you can take advantage of that to save space when you
create variables to store them. Instead of using the default length of 8 for numeric variables,
set the LENGTH of the numeric variables where you are storing the dates to 4. This will safely
store dates from January 1, 1582 (the earliest date SAS can handle), to October 23, 7701. A
length of 5 is overkill, although that would extend the ending date another 534,773,760
days! A length of 3 will not accurately store dates outside the range of January 1, 1960 and
September 13, 1960. If you declare your date variables to be a length of 4, you will be able
to store two dates in the space it would take to store one if you were using the SAS default
length for numeric variables.
Times may present a little bit of a problem, since times have the possibility of having decimal
parts. You can get away with storing times in the same magic length of 4 that you can use for
dates, and the rule is simple enough: if you want fractional seconds in your time values, use a
length of 8 for maximum precision. Otherwise, the same length of 4 will store every possible
whole second from midnight to midnight.
Datetime values need to be a little longer; a length of 4 will not store a datetime value with
accuracy, regardless of whether you want decimal places. The number is just too big. Use a
length of 6 to store datetime values; this will accurately represent datetime values (without
fractions of seconds) from midnight, January 1, 1582 to 3:04:31 PM on April 9, 6315. Note
that a length of 6 might not translate into other databases.
In all the above cases, the minimum lengths for accuracy have been given to you; do not
attempt to save more space by shrinking the variables further. You will lose precision, and this
could lead to unexpected results. Example 1.6.1 shows what can happen if you do not use
enough bytes to store your date values.
Example 1.6.1 The Effect of LENGTH Statements on Dates
DATA date_length;
LENGTH len3 3 len4 4 len5 5;
len3 = ‘05AUG2004’d+1;
len4 = ‘05AUG2004’d+1;
len5 = ‘05AUG2004’d+1;
FORMAT len3 len4 len5 mmddyy10.;
RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=date_length;
RUN;

Chapter 1: Introduction to Dates and Times in SAS

Here is the resulting output. Notice that the date in len3 is different from the one in the other
two variables. This is what can happen when you shrink the size of the variable too much.
Instead of August 6, 2004, the value is wrong.
len3

len4

len5

08/05/2004 08/06/2004 08/06/2004

CHAPTER 2

Displaying SAS Date, Time, and
Datetime Values as Dates and Times as
We Know Them
2.1 How Do I Use a Format? ................................................................................... 16
2.2 So Just How Many Built-in Formats Are There for Dates and Times?........................ 18
2.3 A Quick Note About Date Formats, Justification, and ODS.................................... 19
2.4 Detailed Discussion of Each Format .................................................................... 19
2.4.1 Date Formats ......................................................................................... 19
2.4.2 Time Formats ......................................................................................... 43
2.4.3 Datetime Formats ................................................................................... 47
2.5 Creating Custom Date Formats Using the VALUE Statement of PROC FORMAT........ 54
2.6 Creating Custom Date Formats Using the PICTURE Statement of PROC FORMAT ..... 56
2.7 The PUT( ) Function and Formats......................................................................... 60

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

SAS date, time, and datetime values are stored as integers (unless you are storing fractional
parts of seconds). They are all counted from a fixed reference point. SAS date values
increment by 1 at midnight of each day, while SAS datetime values increment by 1 every
second. SAS time values start at zero at midnight of each day, and increment by 1 each
second.
This scheme makes it easy to calculate durations in days and seconds, but it does not do much
for figuring out what a given SAS date, time, or datetime value means in terms of how we talk
about them. Therefore, SAS provides a facility that makes it easy to perform the translation
from SAS into the common terminology of months, days, years, hours, and seconds. The
translation is done through formats.
Formats are what SAS uses to control the way data values are displayed. They can also be
used to group data values together for analysis. They are essential to dates and times in SAS
because SAS does not store dates and times in an easily recognizable form, as we discussed
in Chapter 1. SAS has many built-in formats to display dates, times, and datetime values.
Here’s your handy guide to all of the date, time, and datetime formats readily available in
SAS. In addition, if any of these built-in formats don’t fit your needs, you have the ability to
create (and store for future use) your own formats, which is covered in Sections 2.5 and 2.6.
If you are looking for a quick reference, you can go to Appendix A, which lists all of the date,
time, and datetime formats, and gives a sample display using their default lengths. If the
default does not give you what you want, Section 2.4 discusses each date, time, and datetime
format in detail, including how to specify the length of the format, and how that length affects
the display.

2.1 How Do I Use a Format?
Formats are easy to use. You can permanently associate a format with a variable by using a
FORMAT statement in a DATA step as shown in Example 2.1.1.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Example 2.1.1 Permanently Associating a Format with a Variable
DATA test;
LENGTH date1 time1 4;
date2 = 16048;
time2 = 733000;
FORMAT date1 MMDDYY10. time1. TIMEAMPM11.;
RUN;

This example will create a dataset called TEST, which has two variables, date1, and time1. By
using the FORMAT statement here, you have specified that whenever the values from this
dataset are displayed, the values stored in the variable date1 will always be displayed with
the format MMDDYY10., and those stored in time1 will always be displayed using the
TIMEAMPM11. format.
If you don’t want to have your data values permanently associated with a format, then you
can just apply the format when you are actually writing the values to your output. The same
FORMAT statement is used, but the location has changed, from the DATA step to the PROC
step. Example 2.1.2 illustrates this.
Example 2.1.2 Associating a Format with a Variable for the Duration
of a Procedure
DATA test2;
LENGTH date2 time2 4;
date2 = 16048;
time2 = 733000;
RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=test2;
FORMAT date2 DATE9. time2 TIMEAMPM11.;
RUN;

Now, although there is no format assigned to either date2 or time2 in the DATA step, you
have told the PRINT procedure to write these values using the two formats listed. There’s
another handy thing about using the FORMAT statement with a SAS procedure: if you use the
FORMAT statement in a SAS procedure, it will override any format that has been permanently
associated with the variables for the duration of that procedure. To illustrate, we’ll take the
dataset “test” from Example 2.1.2 above. The variables date1 and time1 have been
associated with the formats MMDDYY10. and TIMEAMPM11., respectively. What if your

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

report needs the date printed out with the day of the week, month name, day, and year, while
the time needs to be seconds after midnight? The PROC PRINT step will look like this:
PROC PRINT DATA=test;
FORMAT date1 WEEKDATE37. time1;
RUN;

All SAS procedures will use the formats specified in the FORMAT statement that is part of the
PROC step instead of the formats associated with the variable in the dataset. Therefore, in the
above example, date1 will be printed with the WEEKDATE. format. What about time1?
There’s no format name given after the variable name in the FORMAT statement. This is how
to tell SAS not to use any formats that may be associated with the variable. To remove a
FORMAT from a variable, make sure that no format names of any kind follow it anywhere in
the FORMAT statement. In the following code segment, both time1 and date1 will be
formatted with WEEKDATE37.
PROC PRINT DATA=test;
FORMAT time1 date1 WEEKDATE37.;
RUN;

2.2 So Just How Many Built-in Formats Are There for
Dates and Times?
The answer is lots. We will discuss each of them in detail here, but if you’re looking for a
quick reference, see Appendix A. SAS formats have their own syntax structure. There is a
format name, followed by a width specification, and they all end with a period. The period is
critical – it is what allows SAS to recognize the word as a format, and not some other SAS
keyword, or text. The width specification varies with each format. This is very important to
dates, because SAS will make abbreviations to the displayed value if you do not specify
enough characters for the width specification. The abbreviation that SAS will use may not give
you the output that you want. Each format has its own default width, which is what SAS will
use if you do not specify a width. The default width is noted in the description for each format
below, and it is usually the width that will accommodate the longest value to be displayed. For
example, the default width for the DOWNAME. format is 9. That will accommodate the string
Wednesday, which is the longest English day-of-week name.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

2.3 A Quick Note About Date Formats, Justification, and
ODS
Each date format has a default justification with respect to the width specification that you give
it. Since numeric values are right-justified in SAS, most formats that are applied to date, time
or datetime formats are right-justified, with a few exceptions. This is only applicable to
traditional column-based output. In ODS destinations other than LISTING, values are justified
within a table column by the SAS procedure default or by a user-defined ODS template. By
default, SAS makes its columns wide enough to fit the widest item in a given column.
Therefore, any leading spaces caused by specifying a width that is too wide to fit the
formatted value won’t show up in ODS output.
If you do not specify column alignment in an ODS template, certain ODS destinations (such as
RTF and PDF) will justify values within a column according to the justification of the format
used in the column, without leading spaces.

2.4 Detailed Discussion of Each Format
This section will give a detailed explanation of all the current standard formats available for
SAS date, time, and datetime values. In addition to the display that results from using a given
format, the explanation includes information on the default width specification and its possible
values, annotated examples of the display with varying width specifications, and usage notes.
Date formats will be covered first, then time and datetime formats. Each subsection is
arranged alphabetically.

2.4.1 Date Formats
A date format translates SAS date values into one of several easily recognized equivalents.
You may specify the width (number of characters) that the translated text will occupy, but each
format has its own default width specification, shown as w in this text. The default width
specification is given in the description of each format. Some, but not all, of the date formats
allow you to specify the character that separates each element of the date. You must not use a
date format to translate datetime values. If you try to translate a datetime value with a date
format, you will get incorrect output. (For an example, see Section 2.4.3.)

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

DATEw. Writes dates as the numerical day of the month followed by the three-letter month
abbreviation and the year, without any separating characters. It is right-justified within the
field. w can be from 5–9, and the default width is 7. If you want to display four-digit years,
use DATE9. The following table shows the result when the date value is 8449, which
corresponds to February 18, 1983. Note the alignment of the date printed.

Format Name

Result

DATE.

18FEB83

DATE5.

18FEB

Comment

No room for year to be displayed.

DATE6.

18FEB

DATE7.

18FEB83

DATE8.

18FEB83

DATE9.

18FEB1983

Output is moved to the right by 1 space.

Two-digit year, leading space.

This format is analogous to the DTDATE. format, which displays datetime values in the same
manner.
DAYw. Writes the numerical day of the month, and it is right-justified within the field. w can
be from 2–32, and the default width is 2. Specifying anything longer than 2 will only place
more spaces in the field to the left of the number, so it’s not necessary to specify more than 2.
The following table shows the result when the date value is 16739, which corresponds to
October 30, 2005:

Format Name

Result

DATE2.

DATE5.

Comment

See how the day is moved three spaces to the right.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

DDMMYYw. Writes dates as day/numerical month/year, where the slash (/) is the
separator, and it is right justified within the field. w can be from 2–10, and the default width
is 8. If you specify a width from 2–5, the date will be truncated on the right, with SAS trying to
fit as much of the day and month as possible in the space allowed. If you use 6, no slashes
will be printed. A width of 7 will cause SAS to print a two-digit year without a slash, and
widths of 8 or 9 will put a two-digit year after the slashes. Use 10 to get a four-digit year with
slashes. The following table shows the result when the date value is 15486, which
corresponds to May 26, 2002:

Format Name

Result

DDMMYY5.

26/05

DDMMYY6.

260502

DDMMYY7.

260502

DDMMYY8.

26/05/02

DDMMYY9.
DDMMYY10.

26/05/02

Comment

Moved right 1 space.

Still a two-digit year, moved right 1 space.

26/05/2002

DDMMYYxw. Is similar to DDMMYYw., above. It is also right-justified. However, with this
format, you can specify what character separates the day, numerical month, and year. The x
in the format name represents the separator between the day, month, and year. x can be:

Character Displayed in Output

blank

colon (:)

dash (—)

no separator

period (.)

slash (/)

Comment

w is a maximum of 8, not 10.

Effectively the same as using the DDMMYYw.
format.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

w can be from 2–10, with the default being 8. This works the same way as the DDMMYY.
format with respect to what SAS fits in the space specified. Again, if you specify a width from
2–5, the date will be truncated on the right, with SAS trying to fit as much of the day and
month as possible in the space allowed. If you use 6, no separator will be used. At 7, SAS
will print a two-digit year without separator, and 8 or 9 will put a two-digit year after the
separator. Use 10 to get a four-digit year with your separator. The following table shows the
result when the date value is 16110, which corresponds to February 9, 2004:

Format Name Result

Comment

DDMMYYP5.

09.02

Only space for day and month

DDMMYYB6.

090204

Not enough space for the blank separator.

DDMMYYN7.

090204

DDMMYYD8.

09-02-04

DDMMYYS9.
DDMMYYC10.

09/02/04

No separator.
Enough space for two-digit year.
Enough space for two-digit year, same as using DDMMYY9.
format.

09:02:2004

DOWNAMEw. Writes the date as the name of the day of the week. It is right-justified, so if
you give it too much space, there will be leading blanks. w can be from 1 to 32, and the
default is 9. If you don’t specify w, SAS will print the entire name of the day. On the other
hand, if you don’t have enough space, SAS will truncate the name of the day to fit. The
following table shows the result when the date value is 17361, which corresponds to
Saturday, July 14, 2007:

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Format Name

Result

DOWNAME5.

Satur

DOWNAME6.

Saturd

DOWNAME7.

Saturda

DOWNAME8.

Saturday

DOWNAME9.
DOWNAME10.
DOWNAME11.

Comment

“Saturday” is only 8 characters long, so 1 leading blank is added,
making it appear as if it has been moved to the right.

Saturday
Saturday

2 leading blanks added.

Saturday

3 leading blanks added.

JULDAYw. Writes the date as the Julian day of the year, which is a value from 1 to
366. It is right-justified. w can be from 3 to 32, and the default is 3.
Format Name

Result Comment

JULDAY3.

There is a leading space here because there are fewer than 3 digits in
the value displayed. The date value used here is 17988, which
corresponds to April 1, 2009.

JULDAY3.

107

There is no leading space here because there are 3 digits in the value
displayed. The date value used here is 18004, which corresponds to
April 17, 2009.

JULDAY4.

JULDAY.

2 leading spaces. You will also have 2 leading spaces there are fewer
than 2 digits and you specify w as 3. The date value used here is
17988, which corresponds to April 1, 2009.
Leading space. Default is 3. The date value used here is 17988, which
corresponds to April 1, 2009.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

JULIANw. Writes your date value as a Julian date, with the year preceding the Julian day. It is rightjustified. w can be from 5 to 7, and the default is 5. If you specify a width of 5, the year portion of the
Julian date is two digits long, while specifying 6 will give you one leading blank and a two-digit year. If
you specify a width of 7, the year portion is four digits long. The following table shows the result when
the date value is 18004, which corresponds to April 17, 2009:

Format Name Result Comment
JULIAN5.

09107

JULIAN6.

09107

JULIAN7.

2009107

One leading blank added.

MMDDYYw. Writes the date as numerical month/day/year, where a slash (/) is the
separator. It is right-justified within the field. w can be from 2 to 10, and the default is 8. It is
similar to the DDMMYY. format in that if you specify 2–5 for the width, the date will be
truncated on the right, with SAS trying to fit as much of the day and month as possible in the
space allowed. If you use 6, no slashes will be printed, but it will print a two-digit year. At 7,
SAS will print a two-digit year without a slash, and 8 or 9 will put a two-digit year after the
slashes. Use a width of 10 to get a four-digit year with slashes. The following table shows the
result when the date value is 16773, which corresponds to December 3, 2005:

Format Name Result
MMDDYY2.

Comment
Month only.

MMDDYY3.

Month, with 1 leading space.

MMDDYY4.

1203

Month and day, no separator.

MMDDYY5.

12/03

Month and day with separating slash.

MMDDYY6.

120305

Month, day, and year, no separator.

MMDDYY7.

120305

MMDDYY8.

12/03/05

MMDDYY9.
MMDDYY10.

12/03/05
12/03/2005

Month, day, and year, no separator, leading blank.

Still a two-digit year, leading blank added.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

MMDDYYxw. Displays the date in the same way that the MMDDYY. format does, except
that you can specify the separator. The x in the format name specifies the separator that you
want to use according to the following table:

Character Displayed in Output

blank

colon (:)

dash (—)

no separator

period (.)

slash (/)

Comment

w is a maximum of 8, not 10.

Effectively the same as using the MMDDYYw.
format.

The date will be right-justified within the width you specify. w can be from 2 to 10, and the
default is 8. If you specify 2–5, the date will be truncated on the right, with SAS trying to fit as
much of the day and month as possible in the space allowed. If you use a width of 6, no
separator will be used. At 7, SAS will print a two-digit year without a separator, and widths of
8 or 9 will put a two-digit year after the separator. Use 10 to get a four-digit year with
separators. The following table shows the result when the date value is 15997, which
corresponds to October 19, 2003:

Format Name

Result

Comment

MMDDYYD5.

10-19

No room for year.

MMDDYYS6.

101903

No room for separators.

MMDDYYN7.

101903

MMDDYYC8.

10:19:03

MMDDYYP9.
MMDDYYB10.

10.19.03
10 19 2003

Leading space, no separator specified, not enough room for four-digit
year.
Colon as separator, still two-digit year.
Not enough room for four-digit year, leading space added.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

MMYYw. Displays the zero-filled month number and year for the given date value,
separated by the letter M. It is right-justified, and w can be from 5 to 32, with a default width
of 7. When w is specified as 5 or 6, a two-digit year is used. If w is 7 or more, a full fourdigit year is displayed. Since this format can only display a maximum of 7 characters, a width
greater than 7 will just add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when the date
value is 16834, which corresponds to February 2, 2006:

Format Name Result
MMYY5.

02M06

MMYY6.

02M06

MMYY7.

02M2006

MMYY8.
MMYY9.

Comment

02M2006
02M2006

Two-digit year, leading space.
Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 1 leading space.
Four-digit year, 2 leading spaces.

MMYYxw. Displays the month number and year for a given date value in the same fashion
as the MMYY format, except that you may specify the separator with x, according to the table
below. Note that the blank is not valid with this format, while it is valid with the
DDMMYYxw. and MMDDYYxw. formats.

Character Displayed in Output

colon (:)

dash (—)

no separator

period (.)

slash (/)

Comment

w can be from 4–32, with a default of 6.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

It is right-justified, and w can be from 5 to 32, with a default width of 7. When w is specified
as 5 or 6, a two-digit year is used. If w is 7 or more, a full four-digit year is displayed.
Specifying no separator with N will change the range of w from 4 to 32, and the default is
changed to 6. Since this format can only display a maximum of 7 characters, anything more
than 7 will just add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when the date value
is 15975, which corresponds to September 27, 2003:

Format Name Result

Comment

MMYYN5.

0903

1 leading space, no separator, two-digit year.

MMYYS6.

09/03

1 leading space, two-digit year.

MMYYD7.

09-2003

MMYYC8.
MMYYP9.

09:2003
09.2003

Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 1 leading space.
Four-digit year, 2 leading spaces.

MONNAMEw. Displays the name of the month. It is right-justified, and w can be from 1 to
32, with a default of 9. Using a value greater than 9 will only add leading spaces. SAS will
truncate the month name as necessary to fit in the width. The following table shows the result
when the date value is 16338, which corresponds to September 24, 2004:

Format Name

Result

Comment

MONNAME3.

Sep

Specifying a w of 3 will display the 3-letter month abbreviation.

MONNAME4.

Sept

MONNAME5.

Septe

MONNAME6.

Septem

MONNAME7.

Septemb

MONNAME8.

Septembe

MONNAME9.

September

MONNAME10.

September

Leading space.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

MONTHw. Displays the number of the month of the year. It is right-justified, and w can be
from 1 to 21, with a default of 2. Using a w of 1 will display the month number as a
hexadecimal value (1 through C). The following table shows the result when the date value is
16773, which corresponds to December 3, 2005:

Format Name Result
MONTH1.

MONTH2.

MONTH3.
MONTH4.

Comment
w of 1 always prints a single hexadecimal digit.

12
12

1 leading space.
2 leading spaces.

MONYYw. Displays the three-letter month abbreviation, followed by the year without any
separating characters. It is right-justified, and w can be from 5 to 7, with a default of 5.
Specifying a width of 5 will give you a two-digit year. A width of 6 will give you a two-digit
year and one leading space in the displayed date, while 7 will give you a four-digit year. It is
analogous to the DTMONYY format, which is used with datetime values. The following table
shows the result when the date value is 15323, which corresponds to December 14, 2001:

Format Name Result
MONYY5.

Comment

DEC01

MONYY6.

DEC01

MONYY7.

DEC2001

Two-digit year, 1 leading space.

PDJULGw. Writes a packed Julian date in hexadecimal format for IBM computers.
Justification is not an issue, and w can range from 3 to 16. The default width is 4. The Julian
date is written as follows: the four-digit Gregorian year is written in the first two bytes, and
the three-digit integer that represents the day of the year is in the next one-and-a-half bytes.
The last half-byte contains all binary 1’s, which indicates the value is positive.
If the SAS date value being translated by this format is a date constant with a two-digit year, it
will be affected by the YEARCUTOFF option. Look at the following SAS log.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

The Log
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1880;
data _null_;
date1 = “15JUN2004”d;
date2 = “15JUN04”d; /* Affected by YEARCUTOFF option */
juldate1 = PUT(date1,pdjulg4.);
juldate2 = PUT(date2,pdjulg4.);
PUT juldate1= $hex8.;
PUT juldate2= $hex8.;
run;
juldate1=2004167F
juldate2=1904167F

PDJULIw. Writes a packed Julian date in hexadecimal format for IBM computers. It only
differs from the PDJULG. format in that it writes the century in the first byte as a two-digit
integer, followed by two digits of the year in the second byte. The next one-and-a-half-bytes
store the three-digit integer that corresponds to the day of the year, while the last half byte is
filled with hexadecimal 1’s that indicate a positive number. As with the PDJULG. format,
justification is not an issue, and the default width is 4, with a width range of 3 to 16.
The century and year are calculated by subtracting 1900 from the four-digit Gregorian year.
A year value of 1980 gives a century/year value of 0080 (1980-1900=80), while 2015
gives 0115 (2015-1900=115). Be aware that this format will not produce correct results for
years preceding 1900. The example below demonstrates.
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=2000;
DATA _NULL_;
date1 = “15JUN1804”d;
date2 = “15JUN1996”d;
date3 = “15JUN96”d;
juldate1 = PUT(date1,pdjuli4.);
juldate2 = PUT(date2,pdjuli4.);
juldate3 = PUT(date3,pdjuli4.);
PUT juldate1= $hex8.;
PUT juldate2= $hex8.;
PUT juldate3= $hex8.;
should_be_date1 = INPUT(juldate1,pdjuli4.);

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times
PUT should_be_date1= mmddyy10.;
PUT should_be_date1= ;
RUN;

Here is the resulting output:
juldate1=009609DF
juldate2=0096167F
juldate3=0196167F
should_be_date1=04/12/1996
should_be_date1=13251

Date1 is in 1804, causing the PDJULI. representation of date1 (juldate1) to be incorrect.
While it should be the same day of the year (167) as date2 and date3, you can see that the
day is incorrectly written as 09D, while the century value is also incorrect, marked as 00
when, by the algorithm, it should be expressed as a negative number. This is verified by using
the PDJULI. informat to read juldate1, which gives a result of April 12, 1996, when it should
be June 15, 1804. (This is because there is no sign bit for julday1 to indicate that the value
should be negative.) The difference between date2 and date3 is caused by the YEARCUTOFF
option. The two-digit year 96 is translated as 2096, not 1996 because of the option.
QTRw. Writes a date value as the quarter of the year. It is right-justified, and w can range
from 1 to 32, with a default of 1. Since this format will only write 1 character, specifying a
width greater than 1 will just add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when
the date value is 12785, which corresponds to January 2, 1995:

Format Name Result
QTR1.
QTR3.
QTR6.

Comment

1
1

Two leading spaces.
1

Five leading spaces.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

QTRRw. Also writes a date value as the quarter of the year, except that it displays the
quarter as a Roman numeral. It is right-justified, and w can range from 3 to 32, with a default
of 3. This format will write a maximum of 3 characters. A width specification greater than 3
will add leading spaces, as shown here:

Format
Name Result
QTRR3.

III

QTRR3.

Comment
The date value used is 14139 (September 16, 1998.)
With a date value of 14229 (December 16, 1998), there is 1 leading space.

WEEKDATEw. Writes date values as day-of-week name, month name, day, and year. It is
right-justified, and w can range from 3 to 37. The default is 29, which is the maximum width
of a date in this format. Specifying anything longer than 29 will cause leading spaces to be
added. If the width specified is too small to display the complete day of the year and month,
SAS will abbreviate. The following table shows the result when the date value is 15972,
which corresponds to September 24, 2003:

Format
Name

Result

WEEKDATE3. Wed
WEEKDATE5.

Wed

Comment
Three letter day-of-week abbreviation.
Two leading spaces.

WEEKDATE9. Wednesday

Will fit all day of week names. Leading spaces will
be added for days other than “Wednesday”.

WEEKDATE17. Wed, Sep 24, 2003

Full date information, abbreviated.

WEEKDATE20.

Wed, Sep 24, 2003

WEEKDATE23. Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003

Three leading spaces, date abbreviated.
Full day-of-week name, month name abbreviated.

WEEKDATE29. Wednesday, September 24, 2003
WEEKDATE30. Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Leading space.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

WEEKDATXw. Writes date values as day-of-week name, day, month name, and year. It
differs from the WEEKDATE. format in that the day of the month precedes the month name. It
is right-justified, and w can range from 3 to 37. The default is 29, which is the maximum
width of a date in this format. Specifying anything longer than 29 will cause leading spaces to
be added. If the width specified is too small to display the complete day of the year and
month, SAS will abbreviate. The following table shows the result when the date value is
15972, which corresponds to September 24, 2003:

Format
Name

Result

Comment

WEEKDATX3.

Wed

Three letter day-of-week abbreviation.

WEEKDATX5.

Wed

Two leading spaces.

WEEKDATX9.

Wednesday

Will fit all day of week names. Leading spaces
will be added for days other than “Wednesday”.

WEEKDATX17.

Wed, 24 Sep, 2003

Full date information, abbreviated.

WEEKDATX20.

Wed, 24 Sep, 2003

WEEKDATX23.

Wednesday, 24 Sep, 2003

WEEKDATX29.

Wednesday, 24 September, 2003

WEEKDATX30.

Wednesday, 24 September, 2003

Three leading spaces, date abbreviated.
Full day-of-week name, month name abbreviated.

Leading space.

WEEKDAYw. Writes the date value as the number of the day of the week, where
1=Sunday; 2=Monday, etc.). It is right-justified, and w can be from 1 to 32. The default is 1.
Since the maximum width of the display is always one character, specifying anything more
will just cause leading spaces to be added. The following table shows the result when the date
value is 12533, which corresponds to Monday, April 25, 1994:

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Format Name Result Comment
2

WEEKDAY1.

WEEKDAY2.

WEEKDAY3.

One leading space.
Two leading spaces.

WEEKUw. Writes the date value as a week number in decimal format using the U algorithm.
Unlike many other date, time, and datetime formats, it is left-justified. w can be from 1 to
200, and the default is 11. Specifying any value greater than 11 will display the same results
as if w were 11. The U algorithm calculates weeks based on Sunday being the first day of the
week, and the week number is displayed as a two-digit number from 0 to 53, with a leading
zero if necessary. The display that this format presents varies, based on the width
specification. The following table shows the result when the date value is 17232, which
corresponds to March 7, 2007, which was a Wednesday in the ninth week of the year:

Format
Name

Result

Comment

WEEKU3.

W09

“W” indicates week, week number follows, leading zero if necessary.

WEEKU4.

W09

Same as WEEKU3. No leading spaces.

WEEKU5.

07W09

Two-digit year precedes week.

WEEKU6.

07W09

Same as WEEKU5.

WEEKU7.

07W0904

Two-digit year precedes week, week followed by the number of the day of
the week.

WEEKU8.

07W0904

Same as WEEKU7.

WEEKU9.

2007W0904

Four-digit year precedes week, week number is followed by number of
the day of the week.

WEEKU10.

2007W0904

Same as WEEKU9.

WEEKU11.

2007-W09-04

Separator added between year, week number, and number of the day
of the week.

WEEKU12.

2007-W09-04

Same as WEEKU11.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

WEEKVw. Writes the date value as a week number in decimal format using the V algorithm,
which is International Standards Organization (ISO) compliant. It is left-justified in the same
fashion as the WEEKU. format. w can be from 1 to 200, and the default is 11. Specifying
any value greater than 11 will display the same results as if w were 11. The V algorithm
calculates weeks based on Monday being the first day of the week, and the week number is
displayed as a two-digit number from 0 to 53, with a leading zero if necessary. In addition,
the first week of the year contains both January 4 and the first Thursday of the year. Therefore,
if the first Monday of the year falls on January 2, 3, or 4, the preceding days of the calendar
year are considered a part of week 53 of the previous calendar year. The following table
shows the result when the date value is 15340, which corresponds to December 31, 2001.
Note that although the date is in 2001, the algorithm used by this format places the date in
the year 2002. Monday, December 31, 2001, is considered to be the first day of the first
week of the year 2002.

Format
Name Result

Comment

WEEKV3.

W01

“W” indicates week, week number follows, leading zero if necessary.

WEEKV4.

W01

Same as WEEKV3. No leading spaces.

WEEKV5.

02W01

Two-digit year precedes week.

WEEKV6.

02W01

Same as WEEKV5.

WEEKV7.

02W0101

Two-digit year precedes week, week followed by the number of the day of
the week.

WEEKV8.

02W0101

Same as WEEKV7.

WEEKV9.

2002W0101

Four-digit year precedes week, week number is followed by number of
the day of the week.

WEEKV10. 2002W0101

Same as WEEKV9.

WEEKV11. 2002-W01-01

Separator added between year, week number, and number of the day of
the week.

WEEKV12. 2002-W01-01

Same as WEEKV11.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

WEEKWw. Writes the date value as a week number in decimal format using the W
algorithm. As with the WEEKU. and WEEKV. formats, it is left-justified. w can be from 1 to
200, and the default is 11. Specifying any value greater than 11 will display the same results
as if w were 11. The W algorithm calculates weeks based on Monday being the first day of
the week without any other restriction. The week number is displayed as a two-digit number
from 0 to 53, with a leading zero if necessary. The display that this format presents varies,
based on the width specification. The following table shows the result when the date value is
15340, which corresponds to December 31, 2001, (the same date used in the V algorithm
example above). Note that the W algorithm assigns the date as the first day of the last week
of the calendar year 2001.

Format
Name Result

Comment

WEEKW3. W53

“W” indicates week, week number follows, leading zero if necessary.

WEEKW4. W53

Same as WEEKW3. No leading spaces.

WEEKW5. 01W53

Two-digit year precedes week.

WEEKW6. 01W53

Same as WEEKW5.

WEEKW7. 01W5301

Two-digit year precedes week, week followed by number of day of week.

WEEKW8. 01W5301

Same as WEEKW7.

WEEKW9. 2001W5301

Four-digit year precedes week, week number is followed by number of the
day of the week.

WEEKW10. 2001W5301

Same as WEEKW9.

WEEKW11. 2001-W53-01

Separator added between year, week number, and number of the day of
the week.

WEEKW12. 2001-W53-01

Same as WEEKW11.

WORDDATEw. Displays the date value as name-of-month, day, and year. It is right-justified,
and w can range from 3 to 32. The default is 18. If the width specified is less than 18, SAS
will abbreviate and add leading spaces as necessary, regardless of whether the specific date
to be displayed will fit in the allocated space because of its value. The following table shows
the result when the date value is 15945, which corresponds to August 28, 2003:

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Format
Name

Result

Comment

WORDDATE3. Aug
WORDDATE12. Aug 28, 2003
WORDDATE15.

Aug 28, 2003

Three leading spaces.

WORDDATE18.

August 28, 2003

Full month-name, but only 15 characters, therefore, 3 leading
spaces.

August 28, 2003

WORDDATE20.

Five leading spaces.

WORDDATXw. Displays the date value as day, name-of-month, and year. It differs from the
WORDDATE. format in that the day precedes the name-of-month. It is right-justified, and w
can range from 3 to 32. The default is 18. If the width specified is less than 18, SAS will
abbreviate and add leading spaces as necessary, even if the date to be displayed will fit in
the width specified. In the following table, you see that March is abbreviated for width
specifications less than 18, even though there is room to print the entire date string. The table
shows the result when the date value is 16144, which corresponds to March 14, 2004:

Format
Name
WORDDATX3.
WORDDATX12.
WORDDATX14.

Result

Comment

Mar
14 Mar 2004
14 Mar 2004

Leading space.
w is less than 18, so the format uses the abbreviated month
name, and adds leading spaces even though the text displayed
would fit in 13 characters.

WORDDATX16.

14 Mar 2004

w is still less than 18, so “March” is still abbreviated, and
more leading spaces are added.

WORDDATX18.

14 March 2004

Printed with leading spaces because date string is only 13
characters long.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

YEARw. Displays the year for the given date value. It is right-justified, and w can be from 2
to 4, with a default width of 4. When w is specified as 2 or 3, a two-digit year is used. The
following table shows the result when the date value is 18599, which corresponds to
December 3, 2010:

Format Name Result Comment
YEAR2.

YEAR3.

YEAR4.

2010

Two-digit year.
Two-digit year with a leading space.
Four-digit year.

YYMMw. Displays the year and month number for the given date value, separated by the
letter M. It is right-justified, and w can be from 5 to 32, with a default width of 7. When w is
specified as 5 or 6, a two-digit year is used. If w is 7 or more, a full four-digit year is
displayed. Since this format can only display a maximum of 7 characters, anything more than
7 will just add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when the date value is
14476, which corresponds to August 20, 1999:

Format Name Result
YYMM5.

99M08

Comment
Two-digit year.

YYMM6.

99M08

Leading space.

YYMM7.

1999M08

Four-digit year.

YYMM8.

1999M08

Leading space.

YYMMxw. Displays the year and month number for a given date value in the same manner
as the YYMM. format above, except that you may specify the separator with x according to
the table shown here. Unlike the DDMMYYxw., MMDDYYxw., and the YYMMDDxw.
formats, a blank is not a valid separator with this format.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Character Displayed in Output

colon (:)

dash (—)

no separator

period (.)

slash (/)

Comment

w can be from 4-–32, with a default of 6.

It is right-justified, and w can be from 5 to 32, with a default width of 7. When w is specified
as 5 or 6, a two-digit year is used. If w is 7 or more, a full four-digit year is displayed.
Specifying no separator with “N” will change the range of w from 4 to 32, and the default
width becomes 6. Since this format can only display a maximum of 7 characters, anything
more than 7 will just add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when the date
value is 16315, which corresponds to September 1, 2004:

Format Name Result
YYMMN4.

0409

YYMMC5.

04:09

YYMMD6.

04-09

YYMMP7.

2004.09

YYMMS8.

2004/09

Comment
No separator, minimum width is 4, two-digit year.

One leading space, two-digit year.
Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 1 leading space.

YYMMDDw. This format is a variation on the DDMMYY. and MMDDYY. formats. It writes
the date as year-numerical month, where a dash (–) is the separator. It is right-justified within
the field. w can be from 2 to 10, and the default is 8. It is similar to the MMDDYY. format in
that if you specify the width from 2–5, the date will be truncated on the right, with SAS trying
to fit as much of the year and month as possible in the space allowed. If you use 6, no dashes
will be printed. At 7, SAS will print a two-digit year without a dash, and 8 or 9 will put a twodigit year before the first dash. Use a width of 10 to get a four-digit year with dashes. The
following table shows the result when the date value is 14927, which corresponds to
November 13, 2000:

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Format
Name

Result

Comment

YYMMDD4. 0011

Two-digit year, month, not enough space for day.

YYMMDD5. 00-11

Two-digit year, month, dash separator, not enough space for
day.

YYMMDD6. 001113

Two-digit year, month, day, no separators.

YYMMDD7.

001113

YYMMDD8. 00-11-13
YYMMDD9.

00-11-13

YYMMDD10. 2000-11-13

One leading space, no separators.
Two-digit year
Two-digit year, leading space.
Four-digit year.

YYMMDDxw. Displays the date in the same way that the YYMMDD. format does, except
that you can specify the separator. The x in the format name specifies the separator that you
want to use according to the table shown here:

Character Displayed in Output

Comment

blank

colon (:)

dash (—)

Effectively the same as using the YYMMDDw. format.

no separator

w is a maximum of 8, not 10.

period (-)

slash (/)

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

digit year before the first separator. The following table shows the result when the date value
is 17136, which corresponds to December 1, 2006:

Format
Name

Result

Comment

YYMMDDN4. 0612

Two-digit year, month, not enough space for day.

YYMMDDC5. 06:12

Two-digit year, month, colon separator, not enough space for day.

YYMMDDD6. 061201

Two-digit year, month, day, no separators.

YYMMDDP7.

061201

YYMMDDB8.

06 12 01

One leading space, no separators.
Two-digit year.

YYMMDDN8. 20061201
YYMMDDS9.

Because there is no separator, a four-digit year is displayed.

06/12/01

Two-digit year, leading space, slash separators.

YYMMDDD10. 2006-12-01

Four-digit year, dash separators, same as YYMMDD.

YYMONw. Writes dates as a two- or four-digit year followed by the three-letter month
abbreviation. It is right-justified. w can be from 5 to 32, and the default is 7. Use a width of 7
to get a four-digit year. If w is less than 7, a two-digit year will be displayed. If w is larger
than 7, leading spaces will be added. The following table shows the result when the date
value is 15323, which corresponds to December 14, 2001:

Format Name Result
YYMON5.

01DEC

YYMON6.

01DEC

YYMON7.

2001DEC

YYMON10.

2001DEC

Comment
Two-digit year.
Two-digit year, 1 leading space.
Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 3 leading spaces.

YYQw. Writes date values as a two-digit or four-digit year, followed by the letter Q, and a
single-digit representing the quarter of the year. It is right-justified, and w can be from 4 to

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

32. The default width is 6. Use 6 to get a four-digit year, while a width of 4 or 5 will give you
a two-digit year. Specifying a width larger than 6 will only add leading spaces. The following
table shows the result when the date value is 16271, which corresponds to July 19, 2004:

Format Name Result
04Q3

YYQ4.
YYQ5.

04Q3

YYQ6.

2004Q3
2004Q3

YYQ8.

Comment
Two-digit year.
Two-digit year, 1 leading space.
Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 2 leading spaces.

YYQxw. Writes date values as a two-digit or four-digit year, followed by a separator that
you specify, and a single-digit representing the quarter of the year. x is the letter you use to
indicate the separator according to the table shown here. Unlike the DDMMYYxw.,
MMDDYYxw., and the YYMMDDxw. formats, a blank is not a valid separator with this
format.

Character Displayed
in Output

colon (:)

dash (—)

no separator

period (.)

slash (/)

Comment

w can be from 3–32, with a default of 4. When w is 3 or 4, the
year will be displayed as a two-digit year.

This format is right-justified, and w can be from 4 to 32. The default width is 6. Use a width 6
to get a four-digit year, while 4 or 5 will give you a two-digit year. Specifying a width larger
than 6 will add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when the date value is
15253, which corresponds to October 5, 2001:

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Format Name Result Comment
YYQN3.

014

Two-digit year, no separator.

YYQC4.

01:4

Two-digit year.

YYQS5.

01/4

YYQP6.

2001.4

YYQD7.

2001–4

Two-digit year, 1 leading space.
Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 1 leading space.

YYQRw. Writes date values as a two-digit or four-digit year, followed by the letter Q, and
the quarter of the year is represented in Roman numerals. It is right-justified, and w can be
from 6 to 32. The default width is 8. Use 8 to get a four-digit year, while 6 or 7 will give you
a two-digit year. Specifying a width larger than 8 will add leading spaces. The following table
shows the result when the date value is 14099, which corresponds to August 8, 1998:

Format Name Result
YYQR6.

98QIII

YYQR7.

98QIII

YYQR8.

1998QIII

YYQR12.

1998QIII

Comment
Two-digit year.
Two-digit year, 1 leading space.
Four-digit year.
Four-digit year, 4 leading spaces.

YYQRxw. Writes date values as a two-digit or four-digit year, followed by a separator that
you specify, and the quarter of the year is displayed as a Roman numeral. x is the letter you
use to indicate the separator according to the following table. This is another format that
cannot use a blank as the separator.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Character Displayed in
Output

colon (:)

dash (–)

no separator

period (.)

slash (/)

Comment

w can be from 5–32, with a default of 7. When w is 5 or 6, the
year will be displayed as a two-digit year.

This format is right-justified, and w can be from 6 to 32. The default width is 8. Use 8 to get a
four-digit year, while 6 or 7 will display a two-digit year. Specifying a width larger than 8 will
add leading spaces. The following table shows the result when the date value is 17030,
which corresponds to August 17, 2006:

Format Name Result
YYQRP6.

06.III

Comment
Two-digit year.

YYQRS7.

06/III

Two-digit year, 1 leading space.

YYQRN8.

2006III

Four-digit year, 1 leading space, no separator.

YYQRC9.

2006:III

Four-digit year, 1 leading space.

YYQRD10.

2006-III

Four-digit year, 2 leading spaces.

2.4.2 Time Formats
Time formats translate seconds into one of several different ways of displaying time. Only the
TIMEAMPMw.d and TODw.d formats are specific to clock values, displaying clock values from
12:00:00 AM to 11:59:59 PM. All other formats will display hours greater than 23 when
translating a value greater than or equal to 86400, which would be midnight of the following
day. The display of minutes always ranges from 0 to 59, except when you are using the
MMSS. format. The built-in SAS formats always display seconds from 0 to 59.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

The width specification for time (and datetime) values is different from the one for date formats
because it has to allow for decimal parts of seconds. Instead of w, time and datetime formats
are specified as w.d, where w is the overall width of the entire format, and the d accounts
for the number of digits to the right of the decimal point. w must be greater than (d+1) to
account for the decimal point. As with date formats, each of these formats has its own default
width specification, which is detailed in the description of the format.
HHMMw.d Displays SAS time values as hours:minutes. It is right-justified, and does not
display a leading zero in front of the hours. w can be from 2 to 20, with a default of 5, while
d indicates the number of decimal places to the right of the minutes. As noted above, w must
be greater than d+1, to account for the decimal point. It is different from the TIMEw.d format
in that it does not display seconds. If d is 0 or not present, SAS will round to the nearest
minute. Otherwise, SAS will display the seconds in decimal minutes (seconds/60). The
following table shows the result when the date value is 19886, which corresponds to 5 hours,
31 minutes, and 26 seconds:

Format Name Result

Comment

HHMM2.

One leading space because no leading zero.

HHMM4.

5:31

No leading zero, so single-digit hours will fit.

HHMM5.
HHMM8.
HHMM8.2

5:31
5:31
5:31.43

One leading space because there is no leading zero.
Four leading spaces, no leading zero.
26 seconds = .43 minutes, one leading space, no leading
zero.

HOURw.d Displays SAS time values as hours and decimal fractions of hours. It is rightjustified. w can be from 2 to 20, with a default of 2. d is the number of decimal places to the
right of the hours, and w must be greater than d+1 to account for the decimal point. If you do
not specify any decimal places, SAS rounds to the nearest hour. The following table shows the
result when the date value is 53706, which corresponds to 14 hours, 55 minutes and 6
seconds:

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Format
Name Result

Comment

HOUR2.0

Rounded to the nearest hour.

HOUR4.2

14.9

55 minutes, 6 seconds is .92 hours, does not leave enough space for second
decimal place.

HOUR6.2
HOUR8.2

14.92
14.92

One leading space.
Three leading spaces.

MMSSw.d Displays SAS time values as minutes and seconds (mm:ss). It is right-justified. w
can be from 2 to 20, with a default of 5. If you do not specify w large enough to fit minutes
and seconds, SAS will round and display the minutes only. d will print decimal fractions (e.g.,
tenths or hundredths) of seconds. w must be greater than d+1 to account for the decimal
point. The following table shows the result when the date value is 37269, which corresponds
to the time 10:21:09 AM (10:21:09):

Format
Name Result
MMSS4.
MMSS5.

621
621

Comment
Leading space.
Two leading spaces.

MMSS8.2

621:09.0

One decimal place for tenths of seconds, because not enough space to fit. A w
of 8 only leaves enough space for a d of 1 because of the decimal point.

MMSS9.2

621:09.00

Two decimal places for hundredths of seconds.

TIMEw.d Displays SAS time values as hours:minutes:seconds. It is right-justified, and does
not print a leading zero in front of the hours. w can be from 2 to 20, with a default of 8,
while d indicates the number of decimal places to the right of the seconds. w must be greater
than d+1 to account for the decimal point. d will print decimal fractions (e.g., tenths or
hundredths) of seconds.
This format is not restricted to a 24-hour day; if hours is greater than 24, then it will display
the value of hours. It is different from the HHMMw.d format in that it does display seconds. If

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

d is 0 or not present, SAS will round to the nearest second. The following table shows the
result when the date value is 29794, which corresponds to the time 8:16:34 AM (8:16:34):

Format
Name Result

Comment

8:16

TIME5.
TIME6.

8:16

TIME7.

8:16:34

TIME8.

Leading space because of the single-digit hour.

No leading spaces; single-digit hour allows the full time to fit in 7 spaces.

8:16:34

TIME9.

8:16:34

TIMEAMPMw.d Displays time in hours:minutes:seconds followed by a space and then AM
or PM. It is right-justified. w can be from 2 to 20, and the default is 11. w must be greater
than d+1, to account for the decimal point. Any time value greater than or equal to 86400
(midnight) will be displayed as the 12-hour clock time of the next day. This format does not
print a leading zero. If you want the seconds to be printed, use at least 11 for the width. The
following table shows the result when the date value is 11923, which corresponds to the time
3:18:43 AM:

Format Name Result
TIMEAMPM7.
TIMEAMPM9.
TIMEAMPM11.
TIMEAMPM14.

3:18 AM

Comment
Single-digit hour, 1 leading space, no seconds.

3:18 AM
3:18:43 AM
3:18:43 AM

Single-digit hour leaves 1 leading space.
Four leading spaces.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

TODw.d Displays time in hours:minutes:seconds. It is right-justified. w can be from 2 to 20,
and the default is 11. d is the decimal fraction of seconds, and must be less than w–1, to
account for the decimal point. Any time value greater than or equal to 86400 (midnight of the
next day) will be marked as the 24-hour clock time of the next day. This format does not print
a leading zero. If you want the seconds to be displayed, use 8 for the width. Use at least 10 if
you want decimal fractions of seconds shown. The following table shows the result when the
date value is 75122, which corresponds to the time 8:52:02 PM (20:52:02):

Format Name Result
TOD5.

20:52

TOD8.

20:52:02

TOD11.
TOD14.

20:52:02
20:52:02

Comment

Three leading spaces.
Six leading spaces.

2.4.3 Datetime Formats
Datetime formats translate SAS datetime values into one of several different formats. SAS
datetime values are the number of seconds since midnight, January 1, 1960. You can use a
format to display both the date and time. Again, you need to pay attention to the width
specification in datetime formats because it allows for decimal fractions of seconds. Instead of
w, time and datetime formats are specified as w.d, where w is the overall width of the entire
format, and the d accounts for the number of digits to the right of the decimal point. w must
be greater than (d+1) to account for the decimal point. As with date formats, each of these
formats has its own default width specification, which is detailed in the description of the
format.
Starting with Version 9, there are also formats that will allow you to display just the date or
just the time from a datetime value, eliminating the need to use the DATEPART( ) or TIMEPART()
functions for display purposes. Although these DT formats give the same result as their
corresponding date formats, the results you get will be very different should you use a
datetime format on a date value and vice versa. Datetime formats translate seconds since
midnight, January 1, 1960, while date formats translate days since January 1, 1960.
The following example shows what happens when you use date formats to interpret datetime
values and vice versa. If you translate the SAS date value 16838 using a date format, you

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

will get the correct value of February 6, 2006 (n and o.) However, if you use a datetime
format to translate the same value, you will get 4:40:38 AM on January 1, 1960, which
corresponds to 16,838 seconds after midnight, January 1, 1960 (pand q). In similar
fashion, if you translate the value 1422287527 using a datetime format, you will get 3:52:07
on January 25, 2005 (r and s.) This time, if you try to use a date format to translate this
value, you will get a series of asterisks because the value is too large for the SAS date
algorithm to handle (t and u.) Even if you try to get the month, day and year of this value
using the appropriate functions, it will not work.
Example 2.4.1 The Difference Between Date and Datetime Values in Formats
That Display Dates
DATA _NULL_;
date = 16838;
datetime = 1422287527;
PUT "MMDDYY10. representation of date=" date mmddyy10. /
"MONYY7. representation of date=" date monyy7. /
"DTMONYY7. representation of date=" date dtmonyy. /
"When value of date is used as a SAS *datetime* value, the date
represented is:" date datetime20. /
"DATETIME20. representation of datetime=" datetime datetime20. /
"DTMONYY7. representation of datetime=" datetime dtmonyy7. /
"MONYY7. representation of datetime=" datetime monyy7. /
"When value of datetime is used as a SAS *date* value, the date
represented is:" datetime mmddyy10.;
RUN;

The Log
DATA _NULL_;
date = 16838;
datetime = 1422287527;
PUT "MMDDYY10. representation of date=" date mmddyy10. /
"MONYY7. representation of date=" date monyy7. /
"DTMONYY7. representation of date=" date dtmonyy. /
"When value of date is used as a SAS *datetime* value,
represented is:" date datetime20. //
"DATETIME20. representation of datetime=" datetime datetime20. /
"DTMONYY7. representation of datetime=" datetime dtmonyy7. /
"MONYY7. representation of datetime=" datetime monyy7. /

the

date

(continued on next page)

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

"When value of datetime is used as a SAS *date* value, the date represented
is:" datetime mmddyy10.;
RUN;
MMDDYY10. representation of date=02/06/2006

MONYY7. representation of date=FEB2006 o
DTMONYY7. representation of date=JAN60 p
When value of date is used as a SAS *datetime* value, the date represented
is: 01JAN1960:04:40:38
q
DATETIME20. representation of datetime=

25JAN2005:15:52:07r

DTMONYY7. representation of datetime=JAN2005

s
t

MONYY7. representation of datetime=*******
When value of datetime is used as a SAS *date* value, the date represented
is: **********
u

With that in mind, here are the formats that are applicable to datetime values.
DATEAMPMw.d Displays datetime values as “ddmonyy(yy):hh:mm:ss.ss xx”, where
dd is the day of the month, mon is the three-letter abbreviation for the month, and yy(yy) is
the two- or four-digit year. A colon follows the date, and the time is represented by
hh:mm:ss.ss, followed by a space and then AM or PM. It is right-justified. w can be from 7
to 40, and the default is 19. d is the decimal fraction of seconds, and must be less than w–1,
to account for the decimal point. w must be at least 13 to print AM or PM. If w is 10, 11, or
12, the time is displayed as a 24-hour clock. Also, if w–d is less than 17, the decimal values
will be truncated to fit the specified field width. This format produces two-digit years for widths
of 19 or less. The following table shows the result when the date value is 1297063816.5,
which corresponds to the time 7:30:17 AM on February 6, 2001:

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Format Name

Result

Comment

DATEAMPM7.

06FEB01

No room for time.

DATEAMPM12.

06FEB01:07

Two leading spaces, hours is given in 24-hour
clock.

DATEAMPM18.

06FEB01:07:30 AM

Two leading spaces, not enough room for
seconds.

DATEAMPM18.1

06FEB01:07:30 AM

Two leading spaces, not enough room for
seconds.

DATEAMPM19.

06FEB01:07:30:17 AM

DATEAMPM19.1

06FEB01:07:30:17 AM

DATEAMPM25.

DATEAMPM25.1
DATEAMPM29.

06FEB2001:07:30:17 AM

06FEB2001:07:30:16.5 AM
06FEB2001:07:30:17 AM

Not enough room for decimal portion of
seconds.
Four leading spaces, four-digit year, and
rounded seconds.
Two leading spaces, four-digit year, fractional
seconds to 1 decimal place.
Eight leading spaces.

DATETIMEw.d Displays datetime values as ddmonyy(yy):hh:mm:ss.ss, where dd is the day
of the month, mon is the three-letter month abbreviation, and yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit
year. A colon follows the date, and the time is represented by hh:mm:ss.ss. It is similar to
the DATEAMPM. format, except that it uses the twenty-four-hour clock and therefore does not
display AM or PM. It is right-justified. w can be from 7 to 40, and the default is 19. d is the
decimal fraction of seconds, and must be less than w–1 to account for the decimal point. If
w–d is less than 17, the decimal values will be truncated to fit the specified field width. If w–
d is less than 19, this format produces two-digit years. The following table shows the result
when the date value is 1336982668, which corresponds to the time 8:04:28 AM on May
14, 2002:

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Format
Name

Result

DATETIME16.

14MAY02:08:04:28

DATETIME18.
DATETIME18.1
DATETIME19.

DATETIME19.1
DATETIME20.
DATETIME20.1
DATETIME21.
DATETIME21.2

14MAY02:08:04:28
14MAY02:08:04:28.0

Comment

Two leading spaces.
One decimal place.

14MAY2002:08:04:28

Four-digit year, not enough space for decimal point and
decimal place.

14MAY02:08:04:28.0

w–d =18, so the year is shown as a two-digit year with 1
leading space.

14MAY2002:08:04:28
14MAY2002:08:04:28.0
14MAY2002:08:04:28
14MAY2002:08:04:28.00

Two leading spaces.
w–d = 19, so the year is shown as a four-digit year.
Three leading spaces.
Four-digit year, decimal seconds to 2 places.

DTDATEw. Displays datetime values as the numerical day of the month, followed by the
three-letter month abbreviation, and the year without any separating characters. It is rightjustified within the field. w can be from 5–9, the default width is 7. If you want to display fourdigit years, use DTDATE9. The output is identical to the output using the DATE. format. The
difference is that this format will only work correctly with datetime values, while the DATE.
format only works correctly with date values. The following table shows the result when the
date value is 1560379389.4, which corresponds to the time 10:43:09.4 PM on June 11,
2009:

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Format Name Result
DTDATE5.

Comment

11JUN

DTDATE6.

11JUN

DTDATE7.

11JUN09

Leading space, no year.

DTDATE8.

11JUN09

Leading space.

DTDATE9.

11JUN2009

Four-digit year.

DTMONYYw. Displays the date from a datetime value as the three-letter month abbreviation
followed immediately by the year. There are no separating characters. It is right-justified, and
w can be from 5 to 7, with a default of 5. Specifying 5 or 6 will give you a two-digit year,
while 7 will give you a four-digit year. Although this format appears to produce the same
MMMyy(yy) result as the MONYY. format, the DTMONYY. format can be used only with
datetime values, while the MONYY. format works only with date values. The following table
shows the result 1490086128, which corresponds to the time 8:48:48 AM on March 21,
2007.

Format Name Result Comment
DTMONYY5.

MAR07

DTMONYY6.

MAR07

Leading space.

DTMONYY7.

MAR2007

Four-digit year.

DTWKDATXw. Writes datetime values as day of week name, day, month-name, and year.
It differs from the WEEKDATX. format in that it works on datetime values, not date values. It is
right-justified, and w can range from 3 to 37. The default is 29, which is the maximum width
of a date in this format. Specifying anything longer than 29 will cause leading spaces to be
added. If the width specified is too small to display the complete day of the year and month,
SAS will abbreviate. It will first abbreviate the month and then the day of the week as
necessary. The following table shows the result when the date value is 1393525751.9, which
corresponds to the time 6:29:11.9 PM on February 27, 2004:

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Format
Name

Result

DTWKDATX3.

Fri

Comment

DTWKDATX11.

Friday

DTWKDATX15.

Fri, 27 Feb 04

Full name of day with leading spaces.

DTWKDATX16. Fri, 27 Feb 2004
DTWKDATX20.
DTWKDATX29.

Friday, 27 Feb 2004
Friday, 27 February 2004
Friday, 27 February 2004

DTWKDATX33.

Leading space.
Four-digit year, no leading space.
Full name of day, month abbreviation.
Leading spaces in example, but will fit any
date.
More leading spaces.

DTYEARw. Displays the year for the given datetime value. DTYEARw. is identical in result to
the YEAR. format, but it is used with datetime values instead of date values. It is right-justified,
and w can be from 2 to 4, with a default width of 4. When w is specified as 2 or 3, a twodigit year is used. The following table shows the result when the date value is
1464518782.8, which corresponds to the time 10:46:22.8 AM on May 29, 2006:

Format Name Result Comment
DTYEAR2.

DTYEAR3.

DTYEAR4.

2006

Two-digit year.
Two-digit year with a leading space.
Four-digit year.

DTYYQCw. Writes date values as a two-digit or four-digit year, followed by a colon, and a
single-digit representing the quarter of the year. It is right-justified, and w can be from 4 to 6.
The default width is 4. Use a width of 6 to get a four-digit year. Use 4 or 5 to get a two-digit
year. This gives you the same result with datetime values as using the YYQC. format would
yield with a date value. The following table shows the result when the date value is
1313917486.6, which corresponds to the time 9:04:46.6 AM on August 20, 2001:

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Format Name Result Comment
DTYYQC4.

01:3

DTYYQC5.

01:3

DTYYQC6.

2001:3

Two-digit year.
Leading space, two-digit year.
Four-digit year.

2.5 Creating Custom Date Formats Using the VALUE
Statement of PROC FORMAT
In addition to the date and time formats supplied with SAS, you can create your own custom
formats with the FORMAT procedure. With dates and times, you can modify the default
display of an existing SAS format, or create your own using the VALUE or the PICTURE
statement. Here are two examples of modifying the default display of an existing SAS format
using the VALUE statement.
Example 2.5.1 Creating Your Own Format with the VALUE Statement in
PROC FORMAT
An access control company wants a report of the people whose security cards have expired
as of January 1, 2005, and they have the expiration date for each card. Instead of having to
read the report and determine which dates are prior to the cutoff, they want to display any
date prior to January 1, 2005 as Expired. Make sure that you put the format name after the
range, enclosed in brackets.
PROC FORMAT LIBRARY=LIBRARY;
VALUE EXP
LOW-’31DEC2004’D= “Expired”
‘01JAN2005’D - HIGH=[mmddyy10.]; /* Instructs SAS to use the

*/
/* MMDDYY10. format for these */
/* values
*/

RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA= ACCESS;
ID CARD_NUM;
VAR EXP_DATE EXP_DATE_RAW;
FORMAT EXP_DATE EXP. EXP_DATE_RAW DATE9.;
RUN;

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

CARD_NUM
84485598
16205371
63656754
10270040
94822015
27800904
97189418
70815194
50465401
43034970

EXP_DATE
11/14/2006
11/27/2005
01/14/2005
Expired
Expired
Expired
08/14/2005
03/14/2007
Expired
09/28/2005

EXP_DATE_RAW
14NOV2006
27NOV2005
14JAN2005
01APR2004
04JUN2004
23OCT2004
14AUG2005
14MAR2007
26MAY2004
28SEP2005

Example 2.5.2 Creating Your Own Format with the VALUE Statement in
PROC FORMAT
In order to be able to drive the next stage in a road race, drivers must finish this stage in ten
minutes or less, and the results are posted. This example shows that you can customize time
formats as well as date formats. To customize datetime formats, you would specify a datetime
format instead of a date or time format.
PROC FORMAT;
VALUE QUALIFY
LOW-’00:10:00’T=[MMSS5.]; /* Instructs the SAS System to use the */

/* MMSS5. format for these values

‘00:10:00’T <- HIGH = “Did Not Qualify”;
RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=RACERS;
ID NAME;
VAR TIME;
FORMAT TIME QUALIFY.;
RUN;

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

NAME
BORK
BOVA
BRANTLEY
BRICKOWSKI
BURKHART
BURROUGHS
BUTLER

TIME
Did Not Qualify
Did Not Qualify
08:31
08:59
07:10
08:05
Did Not Qualify

2.6 Creating Custom Date Formats Using the PICTURE
Statement of PROC FORMAT
To create your own date and time formats with the PICTURE statement of the FORMAT
procedure, you need to use the DATATYPE= option. DATATYPE can take the DATE, TIME, or
DATETIME arguments to indicate the type of value you are formatting. You then need to define
your display by using one of the following date directives. These directives are case-sensitive.
Table 2.6.1 shows the directives.
Table 2.6.1 Picture Format Date Directives
%a

Locale’s abbreviated weekday name. Locale is defined by the LOCALE= system option.

Locale’s full weekday name. Locale is defined by the LOCALE= system option.

Locale’s abbreviated month name. Locale is defined by the LOCALE= system option.

Locale’s full month name. Locale is defined by the LOCALE= system option.

Day of the month as a decimal number (1–31), with no leading zero. Put a zero between the
percent sign and the “d” to have a leading zero in the display.

Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (0–23), with no leading zero. Put a zero between
the percent sign and the “H” to have a leading zero in the display.

Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (1–12), with no leading zero. Put a zero between
the percent sign and the “I” to have a leading zero in the display.

(continued on next page)

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Table 2.6.1 (continued)
%j

Day of the year as a decimal number (1–366), with no leading zero. Put a zero between the
percent sign and the “j” to have a leading zero in the display.

Month as a decimal number (1–12), with no leading zero. Put a zero between the percent
sign and the “m” to have a leading zero in the display.

Minute as a decimal number (0–59), with no leading zero. Put a zero between the percent
sign and the “M” to have a leading zero in the display.

Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM. Locale is defined by the LOCALE= system option.

Second as a decimal number (0-–59), with no leading zero. Put a zero between the percent
sign and the “S” to have a leading zero in the display.

Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number (0–53),
with no leading zero. Put a zero between the percent sign and the “U” to have a leading
zero in the display.

Weekday as a decimal number, where 1 is Sunday, and Saturday is 7.

Year without century as a decimal number (0–99), with no leading zero. Put a zero between
the percent sign and the “y” to have a leading zero in the display.

Year with century as a decimal number (four-digit year).

The percent character (%).

NOTE:

If you are going to use these directives in a picture format, you will need to
add some code to handle the display of missing values.

The following example creates a format similar to the WORDDATE. format, except that
leading zeros are a part of the date display. Pay special attention to how the picture is
created in line 4. When you are using any of the date directives from the table above, you
must enclose your picture string in single quotes. If you use double quotes, SAS will try to
interpret the directives as macro calls. It will write the format to the catalog, and you will see
warnings in the SAS log when the format is used. It will not work if you have a macro that has
the same name as the format you created.

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Example 2.6.1 Creating a Picture Format for Dates Using Date Directives
1
2
3

PROC FORMAT;
PICTURE ZWDATE
. - .Z = “NO DATE GIVEN”

5
6
7
8
9
10
11

RUN;
PROC PRINT DATA=PICTEST LABEL;
VAR DATE DATE2;
FORMAT DATE WORDDATE. DATE2 ZWDATE21.;
LABEL DATE = “DATE USING WORDDATE.”
DATE2 = “DATE USING ZWDATE.”;
RUN;

LOW - HIGH = ‘%B %0d, %Y’ (DATATYPE=DATE);

Line 3 defines the display for missing values. Without it, you will see the SAS missing value
symbol: either a period (.) or a special missing value. Line 4 gives the picture of how the date
is to be displayed. The zero preceding the day directive (%d) causes the leading zero to be
printed as a part of the date.
The length of the string with the date directives determines the default width of the format. In
this example, the default width is 10, but in order to make sure that all the dates print
correctly, the FORMAT statement in line 8 sets the format width to 21. Following is the
resulting output:

date using worddate. date using zwdate.
June 8, 2002

June 08, 2002

October 17, 2004

May 30, 2005

No Date Given

November 14, 2001

March 2, 2003

March 02, 2003

No Date Given

April 26, 2005

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Example 2.6.2 Using Date Directives and a Picture Format to Bypass
a Function
This example defines a format that will display the date part of datetime values as
mm/dd/yyyy. It is an alternative to using the DATEPART() function and then formatting the
result. In line 3, any missing values are made to display the word Missing. The picture for all
remaining values is defined in line 4. The %0m says that the first characters will be the
numerical value of the month, with a leading zero if necessary, followed by a slash (/).
Similarly, the %0d is interpreted as the numerical day of the month, again with a leading
zero if necessary, followed by a slash. The picture ends with the four-digit year %Y. The
DATATYPE= option tells the format that it will be receiving datetime values to translate. This
format has a default width of ten (2 for the month, 2 for the day, 2 for the slashes, and 4 for
the year.)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

PROC FORMAT;
PICTURE avoid
. - .Z = “Missing”
LOW-HIGH = ‘%0m/%0d/%Y’ (DATATYPE=DATETIME);
RUN;
DATA _NULL_;
sample_date = “15dec2004:3:15:00”dt;
PUT ‘SAS datetime value = ‘ sample_date;
PUT ‘SAS formatted with datetime. format =‘ sample_date datetime.;
PUT ‘Using custom format avoid. =‘ sample_date avoid.;
RUN;

The Log
31
32
33
34
35
36

DATA _NULL_;
sample_date = “15dec2004:3:15:00”dt;
PUT ‘SAS datetime value = ‘ sample_date;
PUT ‘SAS formatted with datetime. format =‘ sample_date datetime.;
PUT ‘Using custom format avoid. ‘ sample_date avoid.;
RUN;

SAS datetime value = 1418699700
SAS formatted with datetime. format =15DEC04:03:15:00
Using custom format avoid. =12/15/2004

The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

As you can see, the only piece of the datetime value displayed with our custom format is the
date. By specifying the desired pieces of the datetime value as a picture, we have eliminated
the need to use the DATEPART() function. However, remember that the format AVOID. only
changes the display. The value is still a datetime value, not a date value. If you wanted to use
the actual date value (e.g., in a calculation,) you would still have to use the DATEPART( )
function to obtain it from the datetime value.

2.7 The PUT() Function and Formats
What happens if you need to use the formatted value of a date in a character string you’re
assembling? If you use the variable that contains the date value, you’ll get the actual SAS date
value, regardless of any permanent formats assigned to the variable. The PUT() function is
used to store the formatted value of a numeric value in a character variable. The syntax is:

PUT(value,format);
value is a constant or a variable (either numeric or character), and format is the name of a
SAS format. If you are formatting a character variable or constant, then the format you use
must be a character format. Similarly, if you are formatting a numeric value, the format must
be a numeric format. The example below demonstrates:
Example 2.7.1 Using the PUT() Function to Create a Character Date String
DATA _NULL_;
NUMERIC_VALUE = 17422;
B = PUT(NUMERIC_VALUE,MMDDYY10.);
PUT B=;
RUN;
B=09/13/2007

/* b is a character variable of length 10 (defined by the
format width) */

There are a couple of cautions here: first, if you’ve already defined the length of the character
value where you store the result, it has to be at least as long as the format width.

Chapter 2: Displaying SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values as Dates and Times

Secondly, if you want to define the format name at run-time, you must use the
PUTN(value,format-value) function, where value is either a numerical or character value
(it can be a constant, variable, or a valid SAS expression), and format-value is either a
character variable that contains the name of a SAS format, or a character constant that
represents a format name.

CHAPTER 3

Converting Dates and Times into
SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values
3.1 Avoiding the Two-Digit Year Trap ....................................................................... 64
3.2 Using Informats ................................................................................................ 65
3.3 The INFORMAT Statement ................................................................................. 66
3.3.1 Using Informats with the INPUT Statement.................................................. 66
3.3.2 Informats with the INPUT( ) Function .......................................................... 67
3.3.3 When the Informat Does Not Match the Data Being Read ........................... 68
3.4 Listing
3.4.1
3.4.2
3.4.3
3.4.4

and Discussion of Informats...................................................................... 70
Date Informats........................................................................................ 70
Time Informats........................................................................................ 75
Datetime Informats.................................................................................. 77
ANYDT and Its Variants .......................................................................... 77

64 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

In Chapter 2, I talked about performing the translation from the way SAS understands dates to
the way we express them. How can we do the reverse? After all, if you have a date, time, or
date and time that you need to store or manipulate, it won’t be represented as a SAS date,
time, or datetime value (unless it is coming from another SAS data set). The translation from
common date and/or time terminology to SAS is almost as easy as going the other way, and it
is done in one of two ways: the first was discussed in Section 1.4 with date, time, and datetime
literals. While this works for a small number of these values that are known at compile time,
how do you deal with many dates, or those that are only known at run time? By using
informats to process them.

3.1 Avoiding the Two-Digit Year Trap
Before we get started with any details about informats, let’s talk about using the YEARCUTOFF=
system option as discussed in Section 1.5. Any time that you translate a date or date and time
from common terminology to its SAS value, the YEARCUTOFF= system option will affect the
value that is created if the term that is being translated only has two digits for the year portion.
Those will be interpreted starting with the 100-year period defined in the YEARCUTOFF= system
option. This rule applies to anything that is being translated into a SAS date, time, or datetime
value, including date, time, or datetime literals. The example below shows how date and
datetime literals are affected by the YEARCUTOFF= system option. It displays the actual SAS
date or datetime value represented by the literal along with its formatted value.
Example 3.1.1 Effects of the YEARCUTOFF= System Option on Date and
Datetime Literals
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1920;
DATA _NULL_;
ARRAY a[6] a1-a6;
a1 = "23MAR2005"d;
a2 = "23MAR1905"d;
a3 = "23MAR05"d;
a4 = "19AUG1959:14:45:00"dt;
a5 = "19AUG2059:14:45:00"dt;
a6 = "19AUG59:14:45:00"dt;
DO i = 1 TO 3;
PUT a{i}= +3 a{i}= mmddyy10.;
END;
DO i = 4 TO 6;
PUT a{i}= +3 a{i}= datetime20.;
END;
RUN;

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 65
a1=16518
a2=-20007

a1=03/23/2005
a2=03/23/1905

a3=16518

a3=03/23/2005

a4=-11610900
a5=3144149100

a4=19AUG1959:14:45:00
a5=19AUG2059:14:45:00

a6=-11610900

a6=19AUG1959:14:45:00

/* The variable a3 has a two-digit year.
The year is translated as 2005 because
it falls in the span 1920-2019, and
therefore, a3=a1. */

/* The variable a6 has a two-digit
year. The year is translated as
1959 because it falls in the
span 1920-2019, and therefore,
a6=a4. */

The same thing will happen when you use an informat with a date or datetime that has only two
digits representing the year.

3.2 Using Informats
Informats are the opposite of formats. Where formats take values and display them in a specific
fashion, informats take a series of alphanumeric characters and translate them into a single
value. Dates and times are the best example of applying informats, since SAS date values are
not normally how the majority of the planet expresses dates. A date such as 11/24/05, or 2405-2002 contains non-numeric characters, so they would have to be read as character values,
which is quite a distance from numeric SAS date values. As with formats, you can create (and
store for future use) your own informats if one is not available within SAS to fit your needs.
To apply an informat to a variable, you use the INFORMAT statement. This will cause SAS to
translate a group of characters into a value which is then stored in the variable. Informats are
most commonly used with the INPUT statement as data are being read in or with the INPUT( )
function to translate data that are already in datasets. They are also a property in some SAS/AF
objects.
You specify an informat with the informat name, followed by an optional width specification,
and a period (.) Informats are like formats in that each informat has a default width that SAS
will use if none is specified.

66 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

3.3 The INFORMAT Statement
The INFORMAT statement is analogous to the FORMAT statement. You use the INFORMAT
statement to associate an informat with a variable in a SAS dataset. You can also remove an
informat that has been permanently associated with the variable by leaving the informat name
blank. You may also use the INFORMAT statement to associate an informat with a variable for
the duration of the procedure (in certain procedures such as the FSEDIT procedure).
INFORMAT date1 mmddyy10.; /* Any character string written into date1
will always be translated with the mmddyy10. informat throughout
SAS */
INFORMAT time3; /* Any informat permanently associated with the
variable time3 will no longer be used to translate character
strings written into time3. */

3.3.1 Using Informats with the INPUT Statement
The basic syntax of an INPUT statement with an informat is:

INPUT @1 date1 mmddyy10.;
First, you will usually specify a starting column. The default starting column is 1, but you can
specify the starting column with the @ sign, followed by the column number. If you do not, the
starting column will be set to the current location of the input pointer. You should also specify a
width for the informat to indicate how many characters are to be read. The above INPUT
statement will read the first ten characters in a line, starting at the first character in a data line,
and SAS will expect it to look like mmsdds(yy)yy, where mm is the month from 01–12, s
represents a separator character, dd is a day from 01–31, and (yy)yy is a two- or four-digit
year. The following example demonstrates that the separator character does not have to be the
same on every line, and the field does not have to be exactly ten characters long.
Example 3.3.1 INPUT Statement Example
DATA informats_are_smart;
INPUT @1 date MMDDYY10.;
unformatted_date = date;
DATALINES;
10/17/2002
05-04-59

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 67
3-1-1940
;
RUN;
PROC PRINT;
FORMAT DATE MMDDYY10.;
RUN;

Obs

Date

Unformatted_date

1 10/17/2002

15630

2 05/04/1959

-242

3 03/01/1940

-7245

As you can see in the above example, the characters in each line of the DATALINES statement
were converted to a SAS date value. It doesn’t matter that lengths of the character strings
representing date in the data are different. It is only an issue if you have more characters in the
date string than the ten columns you’ve allocated for the date. The length of the informat must be
long enough to read all of the characters in the date string.
If the characters read do not match that layout (e.g., June 26, 1994), or if the informat would
yield an impossible value (e.g., February 31) SAS will set the value of the variable date1 to
missing, and set the system variable _ERROR_ to 1. In general, you should know the layout of
the characters before selecting an informat. In SAS Version 9, if you do not know the layout of
the dates, the ANYDT family of informats (Section 3.4.4) can help.

3.3.2 Informats with the INPUT() Function
The INPUT( ) function is the parallel to the PUT( ) function, and it stores a numeric or character
value as a numeric or character variable. The type of the result depends on the type of the
informat that is used. A character informat (one that begins with a $) will return a character
value. All of the informats used with dates, times, and datetimes are numeric; therefore, the
variable returned is numeric. The syntax is:

INPUT(character-value,informat-name);
If you want to define the informat that is to be applied during a SAS job (at run-time), you will
need to use the INPUTN(character-value,informat-value) function (or INPUTC(), if you

68 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

want to produce a character variable) instead. informat-value represents a character
variable or character constant that contains an informat name, while the INPUT( ) function needs
an actual informat name. Make sure that you have defined the width of the informat so that it is
long enough to capture all the characters in the entire character variable. The following
example illustrates the use of the INPUT() function:
Example 3.3.2 INPUT() Function Example
DATA _NULL_;
a = “15-NOV-2003”;
b = INPUT(a,DATE11.);
PUT B=;
RUN;
B=16024

The INPUT( ) function translates the date in the character variable a into its equivalent SAS date
value and stores it in the numeric variable b. The DATE11. informat accounts for the length of
the character variable.

3.3.3 When the Informat Does Not Match the Data Being Read
Informats, like formats, are separated into classes according to the type of data that are being
read. In most cases, if you use the wrong informat for the data type, informats will return an
error (set the SAS automatic variable _ERROR_ to 1), and the value of the variable being read
will be set to missing.
This behavior differs from formats in that if you use the wrong type of format to display a value
(e.g., if you use a date format to display a time value), no error will occur, and at worst, you
will get a warning in the SAS log. However, incorrectly specifying a format will most likely
cause the display to be incorrect. Example 3.3.3 shows what happens when you try to use an
informat that does not match the character string that you are trying to process.

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 69

Example 3.3.3 Using the Wrong Informat
DATA bad_informat;
INPUT @1 date datetime18.;
DATALINES;
11-06-1988
8-25-2004
4-24-2005
;;;;
RUN;

The Log
1
2
3

DATA bad_informat;
INPUT @1 date datetime18.;
DATALINES;

NOTE: Invalid data for date in line 4 1-18.
RULE:
----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+
4
11-06-1988
date=. _ERROR_=1 _N_=1
NOTE: Invalid data for date in line 5 1-18.
5
8-25-2004
date=. _ERROR_=1 _N_=2
NOTE: Invalid data for date in line 6 1-18.
6
4-24-2005
date=. _ERROR_=1 _N_=3
NOTE: The data set WORK.BAD_INFORMAT has 3 observations and 1 variables.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
real time
0.53 seconds
cpu time
0.03 seconds
7
;;;;
8
RUN;

70 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

The Resulting SAS Dataset
Obs date
1
.
2
.
3
.

As you can see in the above example, using the DATETIME. informat to process a series of
character strings that do not represent datetimes produces a note in the log. It also sets the
automatic variable _ERROR_ to 1 for each record where it encountered a mismatch between the
informat specified and the data it attempted to read. The end result is that the value of the date
variable in your output dataset is missing because SAS was not able to process the characters
using the specified informat. Remember to always check your log and your dataset after
reading a text file.

3.4 Listing and Discussion of Informats
Each discussion of an informat in this section will provide an explanation of the informat, its
length specification and the text it is designed to process. Each section is accompanied by a
table that gives examples of the text that is to be processed, along with the informat (and its
length specification), and the resulting SAS date, time, or datetime value.

3.4.1 Date Informats
DATEw. Reads dates in the form ddmonyy(yy), where dd represents the day of the month,
mon is the three-letter month abbreviation, and yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year. The
default value of w is 7, but you should specify 9 if you are reading four-digit years. dd, mon,
and yy(yy) can be separated by blanks or special characters. If you separate them, you must
account for the blanks (or special characters) in the width specification. If you have blanks after
the month and the day, then you need to have a width of 9 for two-digit years, or 11 for fourdigit years. If the leading zero for dd is missing, it has no effect on the value. The following
table gives examples of how to apply this informat to yield the SAS date value that corresponds
to the text shown in each line.

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 71

When the characters being
read are:

Use the
Informat

And the result is:

20oct95

date7.

13076

8 jan 2004

date11.

16078

07-may-1960

date11.

127

DDMMYYw. Reads dates of the form ddmmyy(yy), where dd represents the day of the
month, mm represents the number of the month, and yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year. The
default value of w is 6, but you should specify 8 if you are reading four-digit years. dd, mm,
and yy(yy) can be separated by blanks or special characters. If you separate them, you must
account for the separating characters in the width specification. If you have blanks after the
month and the day, then you need to have a width of 8 for two-digit years, or 10 for four-digit
years. SAS will do its best to decipher the string if no separators are used, but some dates
cannot be processed, e.g., 2112008. Without place-holding zeros or separators, there is no
way to know if the date is 21 January, 2008, or 2 November, 2008. The following table gives
examples of how to apply this informat to yield the SAS date value that corresponds to the text
shown in each line.

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat

And the result is:

140390

ddmmyy6.

11030

06/09/05

ddmmyy8.

16685

22-04-2003

ddmmyy10.

15817

JULIANw. Translates a Julian date in the form YY(yy)ddd, with the two- or four-digit year
preceding the zero-filled Julian day of the year. It is right-justified. w can be from 5 to 32, and
the default is 5. If you specify 5, the year portion of the Julian date is two digits long. If you
specify 7 or more, the year portion is four digits long. Zeros must fill the space between the year
and day values; for example, the fifth day of the year must be given as 005. Any date
preceding the year 1582 on the Gregorian calendar cannot be read as a Julian value. The
following table gives examples of how to apply this informat to yield the SAS date value that
corresponds to the text shown in each line.

72 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat

And the result is:

77284

(October 11, 1977)

julian5.

6493

2004005 (January 5, 2004)

julian7.

16075

2002111 (April 21,2002)

julian10.

15451

MMDDYYw. Reads dates of the form mmddyy(yy), where mm represents the number of
the month, dd represents the day of the month, and yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year. The
default value of w is 6, but you should specify 8 if you are reading four-digit years. dd, mm,
and yy(yy) can be separated by blanks or special characters. If you separate them, you must
account for the blanks in the width specification. If you have blanks after the month and the day,
then you need to have a width of 8 for two-digit years, or 10 for four-digit years. SAS will do its
best to decipher the string if no separators are used, but some dates cannot be processed, e.g.,
1272003. Without place holding zeros or separators, there is no way to know if the date is
January 27, 2003, or December 7, 2003. The following table gives examples of how to apply
this informat to yield the SAS date value that corresponds to the text shown in each line.

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat

And the result is:

041705

mmddyy6.

16543

1/15/2004

mmddyy10.

16085

08281996

mmddyy10.

13389

MONYYw. Reads dates of the form monyy(yy), where mon is the three-letter month
abbreviation, and yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year. Using this informat will set the SAS date
value that corresponds to the first day of the month. The default value of w is 5, but you should
specify 7 if you are reading four-digit years. The following table gives examples of how to
apply this informat to yield the SAS date value that corresponds to the text shown in each line.

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 73

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat And the result is:

JAN05

monyy5.

16437

(January 1, 2005)

dec1920

monyy7.

-14275

(December 1, 1920)

aug2020

monyy7.

22128

(August 1, 2020)

PDJULG4. Reads a packed Julian date in hexadecimal format for IBM computers. The width
specification is always 4, because the Julian date is parsed as follows: the four-digit Gregorian
year is written in the first two bytes, and the three-digit integer that represents the day of the
year is in the next one-and-a-half bytes. The last half-byte contains all binary 1’s, which indicates
the value is positive. There is no example given for this informat because packed decimal Julian
dates yield non-printable characters.
PDJULIw. Also reads a packed Julian date in hexadecimal format for IBM computers. It differs
from the PDJULG. informat in that it expects the two digits of the century in the first byte,
followed by two digits of the year in the second byte. The next one-and-a-half-bytes store the
three-digit integer that corresponds to the day of the year, while the last half-byte is filled with
hexadecimal 1’s, representing a positive number. The century and year are calculated by
subtracting 1900 from the four-digit Gregorian year. Once again, there is no example, since
packed decimal Julian dates yield non-printable characters.
YYMMDDw. Reads dates of the form yy(yy)mmdd, where yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit
year, mm represents the number of the month, and dd represents the day of the month. The
default value of w is 6, but you should specify 8 if you are reading four-digit years. yy(yy),
mm, and dd can be separated by blanks or special characters. If you separate them, you must
account for the separating characters in the width specification. If you have blanks after the
month and the day, then you need to have a width of 8 for two-digit years, or 10 for four-digit
years. The following table gives examples of how to apply this informat to yield the SAS date
value that corresponds to the text shown in each line.

74 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat And the result is:

041205

yymmdd6.

16410

20030227

yymmdd8.

15763

20030227

yymmdd10.

15763

1978-07-11

yymmdd10.

6766

YYMMNw. Reads dates of the form yy(yy)mm, where yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year,
and mm represents the number of the month. The day is automatically set to 1. The default
value of w is 4, but you should specify 6 if you are reading four-digit years. The N in the
informat name is necessary. You may not use any separating characters between the month and
the year. This informat will produce a date value that is equal to the first day of the month given.
The following table gives examples of how to apply this informat to yield the SAS date value
that corresponds to the text shown in each line.

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat And the result is:

7805

yymmn4.

6695

200504

yymmn6.

16527

(April 1, 2005)

199211

yymmn6.

11993

(November 1, 1992)

(May 1, 1978)

YYQw. Reads dates of the form yy(yy)Qq, where yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year
followed by the letter Q and q is a number from 1 to 4, indicating the quarter of the year. The
date value produced by this informat will correspond to the first day of the given quarter. Use 6
for w if you are reading four-digit years, or 4 if you are reading two-digit years. The default w
in Version 6 is 4, while Versions 7 and above have a default w of 6. The following table gives
examples of how to apply this informat to yield the SAS date value that corresponds to the text
shown in each line.

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 75

When the characters
being read are:

Use the
Informat

And the result is:

04Q1

yyq4.

16071

(January 1, 2004)

2000Q3

yyq6.

14792

(July 1, 2000)

1985Q2

yyq6.

9222

2003Q4

yyq6.

15979

(April 1, 1985)
(October 1, 2003)

3.4.2 Time Informats
MSEC8. Reads IBM mainframe time values accurate to the nearest millisecond. The width is 8
because the OS TIME macro and STCK system instructions store their time values in 8 bytes.
PDTIME4. Converts packed decimal time values contained in SMF and RMF records produced
by IBM mainframe systems to SAS time values. The width is shown as 4 because SMF and RMF
records are 4 bytes long.
RMFDUR4. Converts IBM SMF duration records into SAS time values. The width is shown as 4
because SMF records are 4 bytes long.
STIMERw. Reads times produced by the STIMER system option in the SAS log. This informat
has no default width. It reads times and interprets them based on colons and decimal points. If
there is one colon, the first two digits are minutes, and the last two are seconds. If there are two
colons, the digits preceding the first colon are hours, the next set of two digits are minutes, and
the last two are seconds. If there is a decimal point, the value following the decimal point is
translated as a decimal fraction of seconds. It can read time values in the following formats,
where hh corresponds to hours, mm corresponds to minutes, ss corresponds to seconds, and
ff corresponds to decimal fractions of seconds:
ss
ss.ff
mm:ss
mm:ss.ff
hh:mm:ss
hh:mm:ss.ff

76 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

DATA _NULL_;
INPUT A STIMER11.;
PUT A;
DATALINES;
33
n
51.60
o
14:05
p
3:11.03 q
1:19:21 r
11:46:17.74 s
RUN;

Corresponding SAS Time Values
n
33
o
51.6
p
845
q
191.03
r
4761
s
42377.74

TIMEw. This will read times in the form hh:mm:ss.ff, where hh indicates the hours, mm is
minutes, and ss is the number of seconds. ff indicates decimal fractions of seconds. Both
seconds and their decimal fractions are assumed to be zero if they are not present. This
informat can read AM and PM time values. If hh is greater than 24, and/or mm and ss are
greater than 60, the time value read will give the correct number of seconds, even if it is
greater than 86399.99 (the number of seconds in a day.) It will parse the time value
according to the number of colons in the input string as shown in the table below.

hh
hh:mm
hh:mm:ss
hh:mm:ss.ff
The program below demonstrates how the informat works, with the SAS time values that
correspond to the input line on the right hand side.
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT A TIME10.;
PUT A;
DATALINES;
124:46
14:11:03.3
1:27 PM
6:30 AM
18:53
RUN;

n
o
p
q
r

Corresponding SAS Time Values
n 449160
o 51063.3
p 48420
q 23400
r 67980

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 77

TU4. Converts IBM mainframe timer units to SAS time values. It is used when reading IBM
mainframe timer values under other operating systems. The width is 4 because the OS TIME
macro returns a 4-byte word.

3.4.3 Datetime Informats
DATETIMEw. This reads SAS datetime values. The datetime value must be in the form
ddmonyy(yy), followed by a blank or a special character, and then the time in the format
hh:mm:ss.ff. dd represents the day of the month, mon is the three-letter month
abbreviation, and yy(yy) is the two- or four-digit year. hh indicates the number of hours,
mm is the number of minutes, and ss is the number of seconds. ff indicates fractional parts of
seconds. Both seconds and fractional seconds are assumed to be zero if they are not present.
w can be from 13 to 40, with a default of 18.
If you use a two-digit year, SAS will apply the YEARCUTOFF= system option in translating the
year. This informat can also read AM and PM time values.
DATA _NULL_;
INPUT A DATETIME22.;
PUT A;
DATALINES;
22APR2004 5:23 PM
n
22APR2004-17:23
o
22APR2004:05:23:15 PM
22APR2004/17:23:15.6
RUN;

p
q

n
o
p
q

Corresponding SAS Datetime
Values
1398273780
1398273780
1398273795
1398273795.6

3.4.4 ANYDT and Its Variants
The release of SAS 9 has addressed a problem with the processing of dates and times that
has plagued SAS since the beginning. While informats handle the translation of a string of
characters into SAS date and time values, in order to use them you had to know what the
string of characters looked like before you processed them. Add to that the many ways that
dates and times are represented, and you wind up with the potential for error, and using more
than a few PUT _INFILE_ statements over the years. There is now a series of three informats
that will intelligently and, for the most part, successfully enable you to avoid this problem.

78 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

The potential for confusion exists with DDMMYY, MMDDYY, and YYMMDD values, especially
in the presence of two-digit-year values. Remember that the SAS system option DATESTYLE
(detailed in Section 1.5) indicates how such confusions will be resolved. Once again, the
possible values for the DATESTYLE= system option are shown in Table 3.4.1.
Table 3.4.1 Values for the DATESTYLE= system option

MDY

Sets the default order as month, day, year.
“11-01-06” would be translated as
November 1, 2006.

YDM

Sets the default order as year, day, month.
“11-01-06” would be translated as June 1,
2011.

MYD

Sets the default order as month, year, day.
“11-01-06” would be translated as
November 6, 2001.

DMY

Sets the default order as day, month, year.
“11-01-06” would be translated as January
11, 2006.

YMD

Sets the default order as year, month, day.
“11-01-06” would be translated as
January 6, 2011.

DYM

Sets the default order as day, year, month.
“11-01-06” would be translated as June 11,
2001.

LOCALE
(default)

Sets the default value according to the LOCALE= system option. When the default value for the
LOCALE= system option is “English_US”, this sets DATESTYLE to MDY. Therefore, by default,
“11-01-06” would be translated as November 1, 2006.

The ANYDTDTE., ANYDTDTM., and ANYDTTME. informats will translate dates, datetime
values, and time values, respectively, into their corresponding SAS values. This translation will
be performed without having to know the representation of these dates, datetime, and time
values in advance. There are limits to the types of representations these informats will process,
and using these informats will take more CPU time than if you used one of the regular
informats to process your data.

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 79

ANYDTDTEw. This will translate data that can be read with the following informats: DATE,
DATETIME, DDMMYY, JULIAN, MMDDYY, MONYY, TIME, YYMMDD, or YYQ into SAS date
values. Note that it can extract date values from a datetime value. However, if only a time
value is given, the date is assumed to be January 1, 1960. w can range from 5 to 32, and
the default width is 9.
The following program illustrates the use and function of this informat. The table that follows
the program was created from the output file from the program. The table details each of the
character strings that are used as input from the DATALINES statement in the program.
OPTIONS DATESTYLE=MDY;
DATA _NULL_;
FILE “ANYDTDTE.TXT”;
RETAIN TAB ‘09’X;
INPUT A $20. @
@1 B ANYDTDTE20.; /* RE-READ SAME DATA LINE INTO A NUMERIC VARIABLE
USING THE ANYDTDTE. INFORMAT */
PUT A TAB B TAB B WORDDATE.;
DATALINES;
05172004
20040517
2004Q1
051704
17052004
170504
17MAY2004:15:12:06
15:12:06
2004138
MAY2004
17MAY2004
;
run;

80 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Input String

SAS
Date
Value

Formatted
Value

05172004

16208

May 17, 2004

20040517

16208

May 17, 2004

2004Q1

16071

January 1, 2004

051704

16208

May 17, 2004

17052004

170504

20943

Notes

The input string cannot be translated reliably
regardless of the order of precedence. The
date could be April 20, 1705
(04/20/1705), or May 17, 2004. SAS
will try to apply the MMDDYY. informat
because of the DATESTYLE option in effect,
but 17 is an invalid value for month.

May 4, 2017

As opposed to the example above with a
four-digit year, this can be translated.
However, this is greatly affected by the
DATESTYLE option in effect. See the special
caution in Example 3.4.1 at the end of this
section on the ANYDT informats.

17MAY2004:15:12:06 16208

May 17, 2004

15:12:06

January 1, 1960

Time values are translated as seconds after
midnight, 1/1/1960, so the date is
1/1/1960.

2004138

16208

May 17, 2004

Julian date

MAY2004

16192

May 1, 2004

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 81

ANYDTDTMw. This will translate data that can be read with the following informats: DATE,
DATETIME, DDMMYY, JULIAN, MMDDYY, MONYY, TIME, YYMMDD, or YYQ, and create
SAS datetime values. If only a time value is given, the date is assumed to be January 1, 1960.
w can range from 1 to 32, and the default width is 19. The following table uses the same
input data as is used in the ANYDTDTE. informat example above.

Input String

SAS Datetime Value Formatted Value

05172004

1400371200

17MAY04:00:00:00

20040517

1400371200

17MAY04:00:00:00

2004Q1

1388534400

01JAN04:00:00:00

051704

1400371200

17MAY04:00:00:00

17052004

The input string cannot be translated reliably
regardless of the order of precedence.

1809475200

As opposed to the example above with a four-digit
year, this can be translated. However, this is greatly
affected by the DATESTYLE option in effect. See the
special caution in Example 3.4.1 at the end of this
section on the ANYDT informats.

170504

17MAY2004:15:12:06 1400425926

17MAY04:15:12:06

15:12:06

54726

01JAN60:15:12:06

2004138

1400371200

17MAY04:00:00:00

MAY2004

1398988800

01MAY04:00:00:00

17MAY2004

1400371200

17MAY04:00:00:00

82 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

ANYDTTMEw. This will take data that can be read with the DATE, DATETIME, DDMMYY,
JULIAN, MMDDYY, MONYY, TIME, YYMMDD, or YYQ informats and translate it to SAS time
values. ANYDTTMEw. can obtain time values from a datetime value. However, if only a date
value is given, the time is assumed to be 12:00 AM. w can range from 1 to 32, and the
default width is 8. This table uses the same input data that was used in the ANYDTDTE.
informat example.

Input String

SAS Time Value Formatted Value

05172004

12:00:00AM

20040517

12:00:00AM

2004Q1

12:00:00AM

051704

12:00:00AM

17052004

The input string cannot be translated reliably
regardless of the order of precedence.

170504

12:00:00AM

17MAY2004:15:12:06 54726

3:12:06PM

15:12:06

54726

3:12:06PM

2004138

12:00:00AM (Julian date)

MAY2004

12:00:00AM

17MAY2004

12:00:00AM

Example 3.4.1 Be Careful When You Use the ANYDT. Series of Informats
The ANYDT. informats are not perfect. Let’s look a little more closely at the interaction between
the DATESTYLE= system option and the ANYDTDTE. informat. As noted in the above
examples, the characters 17052004 cannot be reliably translated, so SAS returns a missing
value regardless of what DATESTYLE= option is in effect. However, it was also shown that
170504 can be translated. The SAS value you get for those characters varies widely
depending on the DATESTYLE= option.

Chapter 3: Converting Dates and Times into SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values 83

When OPTIONS DATESTYLE=myd, '170504' is translated as: . (missing)
When OPTIONS DATESTYLE=ymd, '170504' is translated as: 20943 (05/04/2017)
When OPTIONS DATESTYLE=ydm, '170504' is translated as: . (missing)
When OPTIONS DATESTYLE=dmy, '170504' is translated as: 16208 (05/17/2004)
When OPTIONS DATESTYLE=dym, '170504' is translated as: . (missing)
When OPTIONS DATESTYLE=mdy, '170504' is translated as: 20943 (05/04/2017)

Three of the DATESTYLE settings yield missing values, while two yield the expected date
values. But for some reason, the MDY setting (italics) gives you the value you’d expect from the
YMD setting, and this may not be what you want.
While it is always a good idea to check all data that you are converting to SAS from another
source and especially when you are converting dates, times, and date-time values, it is critical
if you are using the ANYDT. informats.

CHAPTER 4

Date and Time Functions
4.1 Current Date and Time Functions........................................................................ 86
4.2 Extracting Pieces from SAS Date, Time, and Datetime Values ................................ 86
4.3 Creating Dates, Times, and Datetimes from Numbers ........................................... 89
4.4 Calculating Intervals ......................................................................................... 93
4.4.1 Calculating Elapsed Time with DATDIF( ) and YRDIF() ................................. 93
4.4.2 The Basics of SAS Intervals...................................................................... 96
4.4.3 The Interval Calculation Functions: INTCK and INTNX ................................ 98

86 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

SAS has several functions to manipulate dates, times, and datetime values. The functions can
be categorized according to what they do. You can obtain the current date, time, or datetime
(as specified by the computer’s clock). You can also easily extract pieces of dates, times or
datetimes as numerical values from their corresponding SAS values, or you can assemble SAS
date, time, and datetime values from SAS variables or constants. Another set of functions
operates with intervals such as weeks or months.

4.1 Current Date and Time Functions
Current date and time functions have no arguments, and return SAS values as noted in the
following table. The values are obtained from the operating system’s clock.
DATE( ) , TODAY( )

These functions are identical, and they both return the current date as a SAS
date value.

TIME( )

This returns the current time as a SAS time value.

DATETIME( )

This returns the current date and time as a SAS datetime value.

4.2 Extracting Pieces from SAS Date, Time, and
Datetime Values
The extraction functions all use a single argument (represented by arg in the following table),
which represents a SAS date, time, or datetime value. This can be either a SAS variable name
or the appropriate constant. If two-digit year values are used, the result will be subject to the
YEARCUTOFF= option value in effect. They all return a numeric value as the result. The
following table gives examples of how to apply each function, along with relevant comments
for each example:

Chapter 4: Date and Time Functions 87

Function Name

Explanation

Example

DATEPART(arg)

Extracts the date from a SAS
datetime value as a SAS date value.

DATEPART(‘21MAR1998:17:07:00’dt) = 13959
(March 21, 1998)

DAY(arg)

Extracts the number of the day of
the month from a SAS date value.

DAY(“14OCT2008”d) = 14

HOUR(arg)

Extracts the hour from a SAS time
value.

HOUR(“7:35:00”t) =7

JULDATE(arg)

Extracts the Julian date from a SAS
date value. It will return a four- or
five-digit value if the year portion of
the date falls within the 100-year
span defined by the YEARCUTOFF=
option. In order to be Y2K
compliant, you should use the
JULDATE7(); function.

JULDATE(“09MAY2004”d) = 4130
(Result is returned as a numeric value, so there
are no leading zeros.)

Extracts the Julian date with a fourdigit year from a SAS date value.
This is the Y2K-compliant version
since it always returns a seven-digit
number, regardless of the year.

JULDATE7(“09MAY2004”d) = 2004130

MINUTE(arg)

Extracts the minutes from a SAS time
value.

MINUTE(“12:17:43 PM”t) = 17

MONTH(arg)

Extracts the numerical month from a
SAS date value.

MONTH(“22AUG2005”d) = 8

QTR(arg)

Extracts the quarter of the year from
a SAS date value.

QTR(“8JAN2000”d) = 1

SECOND(arg)

Extracts the seconds from a SAS
time value.

SECOND(“2:17:43”t) = 43

JULDATE7(arg)

JULDATE(“09MAY1890”d) = 1890129

JULDATE7(“09MAY1890”d) = 1890129

(continued on next page)

88 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

Function Name

Explanation

Example

TIMEPART(arg)

Extracts the time portion from a SAS
datetime value as a SAS time value.

TIMEPART(“06SEP1976:13:36:33”dt) = 48993
(1:36:33 PM)

WEEK(arg)

Extracts the week number from a
SAS date value, where Sunday is
the first day of the week.

WEEK(“02JAN2005”d) = 1

(Version 9.1.3)

Extracts the week number from a
SAS date value. descriptor can be
“U”, “V”, or “W” (case-insensitive),
and it refers to the algorithm used to
calculate the first week of the year.

WEEK(“02JAN2005”d,”U”) = 1
January 2, 2005 was a Sunday, so the first week
of the year has started.

WEEK(arg,descriptor)

The U algorithm calculates weeks
based on Sunday being the first day
of the week.
The V algorithm calculates weeks to
the ISO standard. Monday is the
first day of the week, and the first
week of the year is defined as the
one that contains both January 4
and the first Thursday of the year.

WEEK(“02JAN2005”,d,”V”) = 53
This week is defined as being the 53rd week in
2004, because it doesn’t contain the first
Monday or Thursday of the year.
WEEK(“02JAN2005”d,”W”) = 0
The year 2005 has started, but weeks are
calculated with Monday as the first day of the
week. Therefore, the first week of 2005 doesn’t
start until January 3, 2005, so this is week 0 of
2005.

The W algorithm calculates weeks
based on Monday being the first
day of the week without restriction.
WEEKDAY(arg)

Extracts the number of the day of
the week, where Sunday=1,
Monday=2, etc. from a SAS date
value.

WEEKDAY(“14APR1999”d) = 4
(Wednesday, April 14, 1999)

YEAR(arg)

Extracts the year from a SAS date
value. If you use a date constant (as
in the example) and not a SAS date
value, it is important to remember
that the YEARCUTOFF option affects
two-digit years.

If OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1920;
YEAR(“19JUL10”d) = 2010
YEAR(“19JUL1910”d) = 1910

Chapter 4: Date and Time Functions 89

4.3 Creating Dates, Times, and Datetimes from Numbers
This series of functions will create SAS date, time, and datetime values from numerical
variables or constants.
DATEJUL(julian-date); creates a SAS date value from a numeric value representing a
Julian date. julian-date must be of the type yy(yy)ddd, where yy(yy) is two or four digits
representing the year, and ddd must be between 1–365 (366 if a leap year.) If you use two
digits for the year, the YEARCUTOFF= option will be used to determine the century. The
following table gives examples of how to apply this function, along with relevant comments for
each example:

Sample Function Call

SAS Date
Value

Formatted
with
MMDDYY10.
Format

OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=1920;

–13959

10/13/1921

With the YEARCUTOFF
value of 1920, the 21 is
interpreted as 1921.

22566

10/13/2021

If YEARCUTOFF is 2000,
the 21 is interpreted as
2021.

DATEJUL(2005174)

16610

06/23/2005

DATEJUL(1989005)

10597

01/05/1989

DATEJUL(00368)

DATEJUL(21286)
OPTIONS YEARCUTOFF=2000;
DATEJUL(21286)

Comments

368 is not a valid value
for a Julian day, so the
function returns a missing
value.

90 The Essential Guide to SAS Dates and Times

DHMS(date,hour,minute,second); creates a SAS datetime value. All four arguments are
required. date is a SAS date value, which can be either a numeric value or a date constant.
If you use a two-digit year in a date constant, the date will be translated according to the
YEARCUTOFF= option. hour is a numeric variable or constant, minute is a numeric variable
or constant, and second is a numeric variable or constant. Hour, minute and second are
not restricted to their clock times; therefore, hour can be greater than 24, while minute and
second can be greater than 60. The following table gives examples of how to apply this
function, along with relevant comments for each example:

Sample Function Call

Datetime
Value

Formatted with
DATETIME.
Format

DHMS(“08JUN1995”d,15,24,0)

1118244240

08JUN1995:15:24:00

DHMS(“10SEP1999”d,3,0,0)

1252551600

10SEP1999:03:00:00

DHMS(“02FEB2004”d,11,54,15)

1391342055

02FEB2004:11:54:15

DHMS(“30JUN1992”d,8,7,93)

1025510913

30JUN1992:08:08:33

DHMS(“26APR2003”d,23,0,28)

1367017228

26APR2003:23:00:28

Comments

The value 93 is just an
argument. The function
ultimately returns the
datetime value in
seconds and the
formatted value
converts the result.
Therefore, 93 seconds
becomes 1 minute, 33
seconds, which adds 1
to the minute value of
7, and reduces the
seconds to 33.

Chapter 4: Date and Time Functions 91

HMS(hour,minute,second); creates a SAS time value. hour is a numeric variable or
constant, minute is a numeric variable or constant, and second is a numeric variable or
constant. All three arguments must be present. hour, minute, and second are not restricted
to their clock times, so that hour can be greater than 24, while minute and second can be
greater than 60. The following table gives examples of how to apply this function, along with
relevant comments for each example:

Sample
Function
Call

Time
Value

Formatted
with
TIME.
Format

Formatted
with
TIMEAMPM.
Format
Comments

HMS(18,0,9)

64809