SAS dates: format the quarter as year/quarter

Question

I have a data set with SAS date format "01JAN1980". I want to generate a variable called "quarter" with format "1980Q1" or what ever combination of year and quarter. Here is what I my SAS codes: quarter=QRT(date) format quarter yyq.

but it gives me 1960Q1 instead of 1980Q1.

Does any one know where is the problem?

Thanks very much!!!

Solution

The Quarter function returns the quarter number, i.e. 1-4. SAS interprets this as a date with a value of 1, which is equivalent to 1st January 1960, then displays that date in yyq. format. So what you actually want here is just to make a copy of the original variable, without changing the value, and apply the format: quarter = date; format quarter yyq.;.

Also, in some cases you might not even need to make a copy of the variable - you can place a format statement in the middle of most procs and it will use that format for the output of the proc.