Tuesday 26 February 2013

NOTE: Plan Early and Avoid a Year 2020 Problem!

My friend Stuart Pearson alerted me to a distant but fast approaching issue for some SAS sites. Stuart observed a problem at one of his clients as they were working on forecasts for the next ten years and one of their processes was feeding-in 2 digit years. 2021 was becoming 1921. This was because the default YEARCUTOFF option value is 1920. As Stuart said to me, as we near 2020 it is something that SAS users need to be fully aware of.

It's not a difficult issue to overcome. But to overcome it, you need to be aware of it.

Stuart also highlighted that SAS Data Quality handles 2 digit years differently to SAS/BASE. By default, anything greater than 04 and less than 99 will be assigned to the 20th century (19nn); for years 01 - 03, the 21st century (20nn) is assigned. You can create your own schemes and rules, but you need to be aware of the defaults.