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CISER Computing

Converting a Numeric Variable to a Character Variable

This is an example of how to change a numeric variable, ID, to character variable.

This example uses PUT function to convert numeric data to character data. The PUT function writes values with a specified format. It takes two arguments: the name of the numeric variable and a SAS format or user-defined format for writing the data.

char_id = put(id, 7.) ;
drop id ;
rename char_id=id ;

Below are a few examples of data conversions using the PUT function:

[convert numeric variable "oldvar"(length) to character variable "newvar"(length)]
oldvar        put function                   newvar           
303 (8) newvar=put(oldvar, 3.); 303 (3)
32000 (8) newvar=put(oldvar, dollar7.); $32,000 (7)
366 (8) newvar=put(oldvar, date9.); 01jan1961 (9)