title: SAS Date (numeric) to Character when missing (.)
body: <p>Most likely a silly question, but I must be overlooking something. </p>
  
  <p>I have a date field in which sometimes the date is missing (.). I have to create a file against this data set, but the requirements to have this loaded into a DB2 environment are requesting that instead of native SAS null numeric value (.), they require it to be a blank string. </p>
  
  <p>This should be a simple task, by first converting the variable to character, and using the appropriate format:</p>
  
  <pre><code>LAST_ATTEMPT = PUT(ATTMPT1,YYMMDDS10.);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When a proc contents is run on the data set, it confirms that this has been converted to a character variable. </p>
  
  <p>The issue is that when I look at the data set, it still has the (.) for the missing values. In an attempt to convert the missing date(.) to a blank string, it then blanks out every value for the variable...</p>
  
  <p>What am I missing here?</p>