Understanding How SAS Handles Dates

How SAS Stores Date Values

Dates are written in many different ways. Some dates contain only numbers. Others contain various combinations of numbers, letters, and characters. For example, all the following forms represent the date July 26, 2013:
Table 15.1 How Dates Are Formatted
072613
26JUL13
132607
7/26/13
26JUL2013
July 26, 2013
With so many different forms of dates, there must be a way to store dates and use them in calculations, regardless of how dates are entered or displayed.
The common ground that SAS uses to represent dates is called a SAS data value. No matter which form you use to write a date, SAS can convert and store that date as the number of days between January ...

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