SYSDATE not current 1

[DanJR]

Win 98
SAS v8.02

I have a macro which contains a PROC SQL procedure and the current date (&SYSDATE) is used within the PROC SQL procedure.

Everything works fine, until last night when I left SAS open over night and came to work this morning, ran my macro (e.g. %myMacro), then found that &SYSDATE was outputting as yesterday! I checked my computers clock and its date was correct. I "re-submitted" the macro and still the same porblem. I tested &SYSDATE using a put statement inside a data step and still the saome problem. I then closed SAS and opened it back up, and &SYSDATE returned the correct date.

The confusing bit is that I checked my "SAS Guide to Macro Processing, version 6" book and it states that SYSDATE "gives the date on which the SAS job started execution".

Is this a bug, or am i misinterrupting something?

Thanks,
Dan.

 

[ChrisW75]

I think that SYSDATE is the date the SAS session was started (as is shown in the page headers in your output file).

Use today() instead, that will return todays date for you.

 

[ChrisW75]

In fact, I just checked this out on the SAS documentation site, and here is the offical answer:-

SYSDATE: the character value representing the date a SAS job or session began executing (two-digit year)

For more info check out

http://v8doc.sas.com/sashtml/

And select Base SAS Software > SAS Macro Language Reference > Macro Variables.

Enjoy.

 

[DanJR]

Thanks Chris for your help. I'll use TODAY as you suggest..

Cheers,
Dan