What value does the MONTH function return when given a date in SAS?

The MONTH function in SAS is specifically designed to extract the numerical representation of the month from a given SAS date value. When a date is passed to this function, it will return an integer from 1 to 12 corresponding to January through December, respectively. This is particularly useful in data manipulation and analysis where the month component of a date is needed for summarizing data, creating reports, or performing time series analysis.

For example, if you provide the date value for January 15, 2022, to the MONTH function, it will return the value 1, indicating it is the first month of the year. This clear distinction of returning a numerical month allows for straightforward comparisons and aggregations based on months, which enhances the flexibility in handling date-related data within SAS environments.