problem with sas dates and proc sql

[imarosel]

Ok, I thought I had the sas date thing licked. I'm importing dates from CSVs into SAS datasets using the input function. So now I have number of seconds from 1960 or whatever. I thought doing comparisons on dates after this would be a breeze but it is not. I thought I would start by selecting the max time from my data set with proc SQL.

I'm inputing to datetime20.

proc sql;
select max(date_field) from dataset;
quit;

this returns a number in scientific notation, not sure if the accuracy of the number is lopped off.

when I try and do a compare to another datetime, I use the exact same input() to get both date times, I get an error saying the datatypes aren't the same.

proc sql;
select max(date_field) from dataset WHERE date_field < compare_date;
quit;

Am I missing something big here?

 

[imarosel]

My solution to the first problem was using (format=datetime20.)

the solution to my second problem was I was using a macro variable and didn't have the &.

Thanks

 

[ChrisW75]

Yup, that'd do it.

Generally I avoid using the Datetime format. I prefer to use a date field and a time field separately. You can use the DATEPART() and TIMEPART() functions to get those bits out of the data.
That's more of a personal preference thing though.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.

 

[imarosel]

I'll keep that in mind, when you need to do a comparison against the whole timestamp how do you bring the two together?