We want a null or missing condition rather than a zero.

Here is the code:
SET ALL = PASS
JOIN PIN IN EMPDATA TO ALL PIN IN TRAINING
END
-*
DEFINE FILE EMPDATA
HDATE/MDYY MISSING ON = DATECVT(HIREDATE,'A8YYMD','MDYY');
SDATE/MDYY MISSING ON = DATECVT(COURSESTART,'A8YYMD','MDYY');
DAYS/D9.1 MISSING ON NEEDS ALL DATA = DATEDIF(SDATE,HIREDATE,'D');
END
-*
TABLE FILE EMPDATA
PRINT PIN DEPT HIREDATE
COURSESTART COURSECODE DAYS
ON TABLE HOLD AS HOLD1
END
-*
TABLE FILE HOLD1
COMPUTE AVE.DAYS
BY DEPT
END

Here is the result:
DESIRED
RESULT
PIN DEPT HIREDATE PIN COURSESTART COURSECODE DAYS
000000010 MARKETING 7/12/1989 000000010 9/18/1989 PDR740 68 68
000000020 MARKETING 7/18/1990 -33072 .
000000030 SALES 4/11/1990 000000030 NAMA730 . .
000000030 SALES 4/11/1990 000000030 5/30/1990 EDP090 49 49
000000040 MARKETING 5/1/1990 000000040 5/13/1990 EDP750 12 12
000000050 SALES 3/15/1989 000000050 5/22/1989 UMI720 68 68
000000060 MARKETING 3/1/1989 -32568 .
000000070 ACCOUNTING 3/5/1990 -32937 .
000000080 MARKETING 2/13/1991 000000080 6/19/1991 EDP690 126 126
000000080 MARKETING 2/13/1991 000000080 2/14/1991 BIT420 1 1


For pin #30 coursecode #NAMA730 we are getting the null condition correctly since a record does exist in the child table. However, for pin #20, since there is no child record the cooursestart is "populating" with a zero giving us an incorrect DAYS difference.
How can we get the zero to be a null so that our DAYS calculate properly?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Kathryn Henning>,

I don't think I understand correctly what exactly you need. The sample output you attached is also very hard to read due to the font size being used. Please edit your post and enclose your code and "desired result" in CODE tags.

Anyway, run this code and analyze the resulting data:

SET ALL = PASS
JOIN PIN IN EMPDATA TO ALL PIN IN TRAINING
END
-*
DEFINE FILE EMPDATA
HDATE/MDYY MISSING ON = DATECVT(HIREDATE,'A8YYMD','MDYY');
SDATE/MDYY MISSING ON = DATECVT(COURSESTART,'A8YYMD','MDYY');
DAYS/D9.1 MISSING ON NEEDS ALL DATA = DATEDIF(SDATE,HIREDATE,'D');
END
-*
TABLE FILE EMPDATA
PRINT
        EMPDATA.PIN AS 'E_PIN'
        TRAINING.PIN AS 'T_PIN'
        DEPT
        HIREDATE 
        COURSESTART
        COURSECODE
        DAYS
WHERE EMPDATA.PIN EQ '0000000$$'
END

Short-path (missing child record) entries are highlighted in the output and I can see that both COURSESTART and DAYS have a correct missing value in those cases. Where exactly are you seeing a "zero" value instead?

This has been solved.
We believe this was happening because the source table was SQL. When we saved the data to a focus hold table and then did the join the date fields populated with blanks properly.