Date:         Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:55:15 -0400
Reply-To:     John Kramer <kramer@JIMMY.HARVARD.EDU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         John Kramer <kramer@JIMMY.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Informats

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 11:26:40 -0700, Rick James <dadagbemi@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>A short program:
>
>data temp;
>        format Name $ 10. Date date9.;
>        input Name $ Date date9.;
>        datalines;
>Ben 23-May-03
>Monica 8-Feb-02
>George 1/1/2004
>John 4-Dec-01
>;
>proc print;run;
>
>Ok, so we all know that the date for George will be invalid because
>its not in the correct informat. What I want  to do is find a way to
>get around this. I have over 10000, with about half of the date9.
>informat and half mmddyy10. Any ideas? What I was thinking was
>probably during the input statements, if an error is encountered, that
>line is reread and a different informat is used then the value
>assigned to Date. Is this even possible, will it ever be?


You can try something like this:

data temp;
        format Name $ 10. Date_txt $ 9.;
        input Name $ Date_txt $;
        datalines;
Ben 23-May-03
Monica 8-Feb-02
George 1/1/2004
John 4-Dec-01
;
run;

data temp(drop=Date_txt);
    set temp;
    Date = input (Date_txt, date9.);
    if _error_ = 1 then do;
        _error_ = 0;
        Date = input(Date_txt, mmddyy10.);
    end;
    format Date date9.;
run;

proc print;run;


I only tested this very briefly, but this should get you what you want.

John