DBDATE

Defines the default display and input format for DATE values.

The DBDATE environment variable defines the default display and input format for DATE values.

Important: The DBDATE environment variable is also used by the IBM® Informix® database client and server to make date to string conversions.

DBDATE defines the order of the month, day, and year time units within a string representing a date with numeric month and day such as "24/04/2014".

Values of DBDATE must be a restricted combination of symbols representing the position of the year (Yn), month (M) and day (D), the separator and some optional configuration options. For example, DMY4/ defines a date format with the day unit at the first position, followed by the month and the year (on 4 digits): "dd/mm/yyyy".

The separator always goes at the end of the format string (for example, DMY2/). If no separator or an invalid character is specified, the slash ( / ) character is the default. Specifying a 0 (zero) as separator indicates that no separator is used.

The default value of DBDATE depends on the type of platform: On desktop/server platforms, the default setting for DBDATE is: MDY4/. On mobile platforms, DBDATE defaults to the regional settings defined on the device.

Table 1. Valid DBDATE symbols
Symbol	Meaning in DBDATE format string
`D`	Day of month as one or two digits
`M`	Month as one or two digits
`Y2`	Year as two digits
`Y3`	Year as three digits (Ming Guo format only)
`Y4`	Year as four digits
`/`	Default time-unit separator for the default locale
`C1`	Ming Guo format modifier (years as digits)
`-`	Hyphen time-unit separator
`.`	Period time-unit separator
`0`	Indicates no time-unit separator

The combinations must follow a specific order:

  { DM | MD } { Y2 | Y3 | Y4 } { / | - | . | 0 } [C1]
  { Y2 | Y3 | Y4 } { DM | MD } { / | - | . | 0 } [C1]

When a form field and its corresponding variable are defined with the DATE type, values will be displayed depending on the DBDATE format, except if a FORMAT attribute is defined.

The DBDATE format is also used to automatically convert a character string to/from a DATE value in programs.

Note that DBDATE takes also effect when fetching DATE values from the database into CHAR/VARCHAR program variables. However, it is not recommended to fetch date information into string variables, it is recommended that you use DATE or DATETIME variables instead.

The C1 modifier can be used at the end of the DBDATE value in order to use Ming Guo date format with digit-based years. When using C1, you can use one of the Y4, Y3 or Y2 symbols for the year.

A Gregorian date format can look like "DMY4/", while a Ming Guo date format would look like "Y3MD/C1".

Date formatting specified in a USING clause or FORMAT attribute overrides the formatting specified in DBDATE.