How can I make a character variable equal to the formatted value of a numeric variable for arbitrary SAS formats?

Question

If I have a numeric variable with a format, is there a way to get the formatted value as a character variable?

e.g. I would like to write something like the following to print 10/06/2009 to the screen but there is no putformatted() function.

data test;
  format i ddmmyy10.;
  i = "10JUN2009"d;
run;

data _null_;
  set test;
  i_formatted = putformatted(i); /* How should I write this? */
  put i_formatted;
run;

(Obviously I can write put(i, ddmmyy10.), but my code needs to work for whatever format i happens to have.)

Answer 1

The VVALUE function formats the variable passed to it using the format associated with the variable. Here's the code using VVALUE:

data test;
  format i ddmmyy10.;
  i = "10JUN2009"d;
run;

data _null_;
  set test;
  i_formatted = vvalue(i);
  put i_formatted;
run;

While cmjohns solution is slightly faster than this code, this code is simpler because there are no macros involved.

Answer 2

Use vformat() function.

/* test data */
data test;
  i = "10jun2009"d;
  format i ddmmyy10.;
run;

/* print out the value using the associated format */
data _null_;
  set test;
  i_formatted = putn(i, vformat(i));
  put i_formatted=;
run;
/* on log
i_formatted=10/06/2099
*/