Overview of Reading Date and Time Values

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Reading Date and Time Values

Lesson Overview

Introduction

SAS software provides many SAS informats for reading raw data values in various forms. If you took the lesson Reading Raw Data in Fixed Fields, you worked with informats to read standard and nonstandard data. In this lesson, you learn how to use a special category of SAS informats called date and time informats. These informats enable you to read a variety of common date and time expressions. After you read date and time values, you can also perform calculations with them.

options yearcutoff=1920; data perm.aprbills; infile aprdata; input LastName $8. @10 DateIn mmddyy8. +1 DateOut mmddyy8. +1 RoomRate 6. @35 EquipCost 6.; Days=dateout-datein+1; RoomCharge=days*roomrate; Total=roomcharge+equipcost; run;

Program Data Vector

This lesson contains 31 pages and takes approximately 45-60 minutes to complete.

Objectives

In this lesson, you will learn

how SAS software stores date and time values
to read common date and time expressions using SAS informats
how to handle two-digit date values
to calculate time intervals by subtracting two dates
to multiply a time interval by a rate.

Prerequisites

Before taking this lesson, you should have completed the following lessons:

Introduction to SAS Programming

Working in the SAS Environment
Basic Concepts
Editing and Debugging SAS Programs
Setting Up Your SAS Session

Creating SAS Data Sets

Reading Raw Data

Reading Various Types of Raw Data

Understanding DATA Step Processing
Reading Raw Data in Fixed Fields