In this example, I want to import some data from an Oracle database and save as a SAS data set with today’s date in the filename. To complicate things a little further, I want the date in mmddyy format so that my file name looks like this: claims_research_101113.

The SAS automatic macro variable SYSDATE stores today’s date in DATE7 format, which looks like this: 11OCT13. There is also a SYSDATE9 variable which stores the date in DATE9 format: 11OCT2013. If I want to format the date the way I want it, I first have to use the INPUTN function to specify a numeric informat, and then I can use the %SYSFUNC macro function to format it as MMDDYYn6.

When I have today’s date formatted the way I want it, I store it in the macro variable &date, which I then add on to my filename when I create the table, so that the previous file doesn’t get overwritten. There’s no need to go into the folder and rename the file manually!  That’s what macro variables are for.  Here’s what it looks like:

%let date=%sysfunc(inputn(&sysdate,date9.),mmddyyn6.);
proc sql ;
    create table mbr_data.claims_research_&date as
        select *
            from ccdr.claims_research;
quit;