title: SAS: convert date to numeric
body: <p>I have a column that contains date values. So when imported as numeric, it shows 20668, 20669...etc. if I format it as yymmddn8, it shows 20160802 etc. However, what I really want is a numeric variable that shows 20160802. I have tried to create other to get day, month, year and then concatenate them. Unfortunately, the issue is if month and day is 1 digit, it would only show 201682. what would be the quickest way to achieve my goal. I guess a can turn the day and month variable to text and add 0 if day or month is less than 10. But this is not elegant and efficient. Please help.
  Thanks</p>