I have SAS and SPSS on my PC and have a choice of using SAS or SPSS when converting an Excel file into a SAS dataset. In terms of reading a date variable, SAS reads the data as is. SPSS reads it and returns a different value.
This is the original date value for one case in the Excel file.
| 3/1/2016 |
SAS PROC IMPORT returned the same date.
01MAR2016
SPSS's IMPORT process (into a SAS dataset) returned this:
02MAR2076
To force SPSS to correct the data, you need to subtract 21916 from the date (which converts the date of this case to be March 1st of 2016).
data spss;set raw.Assessment_spss;
keep DateTaken_74;
FORMAT DateTaken_74 date9. ;
DateTaken_74=DateTaken_74 -21916;
run;
Here is the difference in terms of how they read column names. I read the same Excel table using SAS and SPSS.
SAS PROC IMPORT uses __ (two spaces) when it finds a space in column names. SPSS ignores spaces.
| SAS | SPSS |
| Variable | Variable |
| Site_Name | SiteName |
| Case_Number | CaseNumber |
| Academic_issues__disabled__1066 | Academicissuesdisabled_1066 |