SAS Formats

SAS supports numeric variables and strings, with conversion options. There are many (i.e. hundreds) of formats on top of numerics that impact visualization, not storage.

Contents

SAS Formats

Datetime

SAS prefers the DATE9 format--date constants are declared as "ddMMMyyyy"d. However there is a plethora of formats available.

Format	Appears as...	Note
DATETIME20	`dd-MMM-yyyy:hh:mm:ss`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
DATETIME18	`ddMMMyyyy:hh:mm:ss`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
DATETIME16	`ddMMMyy:hh:mm:ss`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
DATE11	`dd-MMM-yyyy`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
DATE9	`ddMMMyyyy`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
DATE7	`ddMMMyy`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
TIME8	`hh:mm:ss`
TIME5	`hh:mm`
MMDDYY10	`mm/dd/yyyy`
MMDDYY8	`mm/dd/yy`
DDMMYY10	`dd/mm/yyyy`
DDMMYY8	`dd/mm/yy`
MONYY7	`MMMyyyy`	`MMM` is as JAN, not 001
MONNAME	`M`	`M` is as January

Computation

Dates and datetimes can be computed from scratch like:

today = today();
new_years_day = mdy(1,1,2020);

Dates and datetimes can be computed relative to another value like:

one_month_away = intnx('month', today(), 1);
four_weeks_ago = intnx('week', today(), -4);

Valid date intervals are: YEAR, SEMIYEAR, QTR, MONTH, SEMIMONTH, TENDAY, WEEK, WEEKDAY, and DAY.

Valid datetime intervals are: DTYEAR, DTSEMIYEAR, DTQTR, DTMONTH, DTSEMIMONTH, DTTENDAY, DTWEEK, DTWEEKDAY, and DTDAY.

Data can be extracted from dates and datetimes using day(), month(), and year().

Numerics

Given 12345.67...

Format	Using...	Appears as...	Note
w.	5.	12346	Round to nearest integer
w.d	5.1	12345.7	Round to nearest decimal at lowest precision
COMMAw.d	COMMA6.1	12,345.7
COMMAw.d	COMMA5.1	12345.7	Insufficient width for comma
DOLLARw.d	DOLLAR10.2	$12,345.67
EUROw.d	DOLLAR10.2	€12.345,67	European-style decimal and commas
Zw.d	Z8.	00012346

Strings

String variables are only formatted to a length. The format is specified as $N where N is the width.

Length Statement

Often, it is important to specify a string's length before creating it. Observe:

data _NULL_;
    VAR="FOO";
    VAR="FOOBAR";
run;

/* variable VAR is 3-wide and contains "FOO" */

data _NULL_;
    length VAR $60;
    VAR="FOO";
    VAR="FOOBAR";
run;

/* variable VAR is 60-wide and contains "FOOBAR" */

put Formats

The put function accepts additional formatting details:

-L left aligns the value
-C centers the value
-R right aligns the value

VAR2 = put(VAR1, $60. -R);

CategoryRicottone

SASFormats