converting date to character

[nirmalraj]

hi,

I have date 08/20/54 in the format MMDDYY8.I want to create a key which is a substring of other variables, for example lastname with the date variable. if I do a substr, all i get is a weird number -1960.

/* key = substr(LAST_NAME,1,3)||substr(DATE,1,2)||substr(DATE,4,2)||substr(DATE,9,2);
*/

Can some one help out with a solution.
Thanks
Nirmal

 

[jymm]

if you want yymmdd you could do something like

substr(Compress(put(<datefield>,YYMMDD10.),'-'),3,6)

remember - the substring of the date is one thing - the subsrting of the formatted date is quite another...

this help?

 

[klaz2002]

JYMM is correct. The date is stored as the number of days from 1/1/1960 so you will only get the 'weird' number if you use the simple substring function. You need to format the date and then extract the string in JYMM's case using the compress function.
Klaz

 

[nirmalraj]

Thanks jymm.I did something similar to that and it worked out.In fact I had to use compress later.That was helpful.

mm=substr(put(<datefield>,mmddyy8.),1,2);

nirmal