Date:         Thu, 31 May 2001 16:47:54 +0100
Reply-To:     DavidJohnson@HALIFAX.CO.UK
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         David Johnson <DavidJohnson@HALIFAX.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: My  date format
Comments: To: peter.crawford@db.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

There it is. If you don't use it, you forget it is there.  My little grey
cells jangled at Euro dates, but I didn't connect that with EURF.  Another
benefit of consulting in Germany Peter?  Aside from IR35!!

I actually don't like picture formats.  They have a nasty habit of
truncating numeric values.  If they aren't well specified they can lead to
incorrect output.  I see the following is still in the documentation:

CAUTION:
        The picture must be wide enough for the prefix and the numbers. In
this example, if the value -45.00 were formatted with NOZEROS. the result
would be 45.00 because it falls into the first range, low - -1, and the
picture for that range is not wide enough to accommodate the prefixed minus
sign and the number.

I use them here to format a number that is always ten bytes long... in a
string not unlike the US Social Security number.  But that is a fixed and
known length.  I remember a utility company that set up a 1970's mainframe
billing program with short floating point decimal numbers for currency
values.  They didn't believe anyone would ever be billed more than $100 for
3 months energy usage!!!  A former colleague got a lot of work fixing their
billing and reporting systems.  I've seen bad picture formats produce
similarly inaccurate reports because they don't produce the overflow results
of native formats.  An example for those who may not have seen this result:

132  proc format;
133  picture fine  low - 99999 = '£000000'
134                other         = [comma8.];
NOTE: Format FINE has been output.
135  picture bad   low - high  = '£00000';
NOTE: Format BAD has been output.
136  run;

137  data fred;
138  value = 123456;
139  put 'comma7. a good outcome ' value comma7.;
140  put 'comma6. Sas does its best ' value comma6.;
141  put 'comma5. the format switches ' value comma5.;
142  put 'fine. the picture is avoided' value fine.;
143  put 'bad. somebody stuffed it' value bad.;
144  run;

comma7. a good outcome 123,456
comma6. Sas does its best 123456
comma5. the format switches 123E3
fine. the picture is avoided 123,456
bad. somebody stuffed it 23456
NOTE: The data set WORK.FRED has 1 observations and 1 variables.
NOTE: At least one W.D format was too small for the number to be printed.
The decimal may be shifted by the "BEST" format.

Unfortunately, the note regarding the small format does NOT relate to my
picture format!

** ##*

David Johnson
*     07080 81 8399
*     sasuser@dkvj-cons.com
*   http://www.dkvj-cons.com
This message is attributable to the sender and does not necessarily reflect
the view of Halifax Group plc or its subsidiaries.




> ----------
> From:         Peter Crawford[SMTP:peter.crawford@db.com]
> Sent:         31 May 2001 17:09
> To:   DavidJohnson@halifax.co.uk
> Cc:   SAS-L@listserv.uga.edu
> Subject:      Re: My  date format
>
>
> perhaps Drako has a practical request for the sas ballot
> I don't know how many customers would like the EURFdate formats
> extended beyond european languages(plus I notice in v8 on line doc,
> Africaans), but the ballot survey provides one way of letting SAS
> Institute know how important this might be.
>
> When referring to currency formats I assume, below, David Johnson is
> considering their INPUT, because for OUTPUT we can write a picture
> format to prefix (or suffix) any value with a symbol of choice.
>
> The EURO format feature set includes a "still to be documented (and
> perhaps implemented in production)" feature which allows the Euro
> symbol(?) to be defined by a debug string. This enables the equivalent
> of a sterling informat to input and tolerate values prefixed by GBP(£)
> signs
>
> Until Drako can persuade SAS Institute to extend DFLang and date
> format support to the language of his preference, he may follow the
> advice David has offered, and use a cntlin dataset for proc format.
> Then at least he can avoid another program Ian Whitlock would neatly
> categorise as "wallpaper".
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Datum:         31/05/2001 15:42
> An:            SAS-L@listserv.uga.edu
>
>
>
>
> Antwort an:    DavidJohnson@halifax.co.uk
>
> Betreff:       Re: My  date format
> Nachrichtentext:
>
>
> Drako's email appears below:
>
> SAS-L Digest - 31 May 2001 - Special issue (#2001-673)
>
> Hi Drako,
>
> I gather 'STU' and 'LUY' are abbreviations for month names in a language
> other than English.  If your intention is to write a translation like
> 'Janvier', 'Fevrier' etc for months by date number, then you mightlike to
> try the following:
>
> .       Create a character value format that converts the english month
> names into the language you want to use
> .       Then apply a double formatting statement to your variable like so:
>
>         NewName = Put( Put( Date, MonName9.), MyDate.) || Put( Date,
> Year4.);
>
> I suppose I should be surprised that there isn't a native naming format
> for
> months in various foreign languages... but then the currency of the
> largest
> stock exchange in the world is only formatted in SAS by either mapping the
> '$' symbol to a '£' symbol, or by using the Euro format!!!
>
> The other solution I wrote a long time ago to a similar problem... (the
> SAS
> format defined the taxation quarters differently to our own local taxation
> rules)  was to build the format using a data step and a CntlIn statement.
> So if my data covered 1979 to 2001, I looped through that range of dates
> and
> assigned them to a format value based on the year and part of the year.
> Then that was loaded into a format library with the CntlIn option on the
> Format procedure.
>
> 10338  Data DATEFMT;
> 10339    Length Label $40;
> 10340    TYPE = 'N';
> 10341    FMTNAME = 'MYDATE';
> 10342    Do START = '01Jan1979'd to '31may2001'd By 1;
> 10343      END = START;
> 10344      If Put( START, MMDDYY4.) <= '0331'  Then
> 10345         LABEL = Put( START - 365, Year4.) || '03';
> 10346      Else If Put( START, MMDDYY4.) <= '0630'  Then
> 10347         LABEL = Put( START - 365, Year4.) || '04';
> 10348      Else If Put( START, MMDDYY4.) <= '0930'  Then
> 10349         LABEL = Put( START, Year4.) || '01';
> 10350      Else LABEL = Put( START, Year4.) || '02';
> 10352      Output;
> 10353    End;
> 10354  Run;
>
> NOTE: The data set WORK.DATEFMT has 8187 observations and 5 variables.
> NOTE: The DATA statement used 0.63 seconds.
>
>
> 10355  Proc Format Lib = WORK  CntlIn = DATEFMT;
> NOTE: Format MYDATE has been output.
> 10356  Run;
>
> This solution starts the taxation year on 1 July and increments the
> quarters
> into the next year.  The tax year is still defined as 2000 if in 2001 the
> date is before 30 June.
>
> Not the most elegant solution, but it works, and as you can see, is fast.
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> ** ##*
>
> David Johnson
> *     07080 81 8399
> *     sasuser@dkvj-cons.com
> *   http://www.dkvj-cons.com
> This message is attributable to the sender and does not necessarily
> reflect
> the view of Halifax Group plc or its subsidiaries.
>
>
> Date:    Thu, 31 May 2001 09:10:03 +0200
> From:    Drako <akepka@ELKA.PW.EDU.PL>
> Subject: My  date format
>
> Hello,
>
> I must create date format. I write something like this:
>
> proc format lib=work;
>
> picture mydate
>
> '01JAN00'd-'31JAN00'd = %0d'STY'%0y (datatype=date)
>
> '01FEB00'd-'31FEB00'd = %0d'LUT'%0y (datatype=date)
>
> ...;
>
> But in this way I will have to write range for each month each year.
> Do you know better solution?
>
>
> Many Thanks
>
>
>
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Part of the Halifax Group, Halifax plc, Registered in England No. 2367076.  Registered Office: Trinity Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire HX1 2RG. Represents only the Halifax Financial Services Marketing Group for the purposes of advising on and selling life assurance, pensions and unit trust business.  The Marketing Group is regulated by the Personal Investment Authority.  Switchboard 01422 333333.


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