Formatting DATE values
Date values must be formatted when converted to strings.
When does DATE formatting take place?
Date formatting occurs when converting a DATE
to a string with
the USING
operator, for example in a
LET
, DISPLAY
or PRINT
instruction, and when
displaying date values in form fields defined with the FORMAT
attribute.
This example formats a DATE
value with the USING
operator:
MAIN
DEFINE d DATE
LET d = MDY(12,24,2014)
DISPLAY d USING "mmm ddd yyyy"
END MAIN
Dec Wed 2014
Default formatting occurs when USING
or FORMAT
are not used,
and a date value has to be converted to a character string, for example when passing a
DATE
to a function expecting a VARCHAR(n)
.
Default date formatting is based on the date format defined with the DBDATE environment variable. For more details about default formatting, see Data type conversion reference.
This topic describes the syntax of the format-string in the
USING "format-string"
operator and FORMAT =
"format-string"
form field attribute.
Formatting symbols for DATE values
When formatting DATE
values, the format-string of
the USING
operator or FORMAT
attribute consists of a set of place
holders that represent date parts as described in the following table:
Placeholder | Description |
---|---|
dd |
Day of the month as a 2-digit integer. |
ddd |
Three-letter English-language abbreviation of the day of the week. For example: Mon, Tue. |
mm |
Month as a 2-digit integer. |
mmm |
Three-letter English-language abbreviation of the month. For example: Jan, Feb. |
yy |
Year, as a 2-digits integer representing the 2 trailing digits. |
yyy |
Year as a 3-digit number (Ming Guo format only) |
yyyy |
Year as a 4-digit number. |
c1 |
Ming Guo format modifier, see Using the Ming Guo date format. |
Any character different from the date-formatting placeholders is interpreted as a literal and will appear as-is in the resulting string.
The calendar used for date formatting is the Gregorian calendar. The
c1
placeholder is a formatting symbol used to adapt the date to the
Ming Guo calendar.
Format String | Date value | Result string |
---|---|---|
dd/mm/yyyy |
2011-10-24 |
24/10/2011 |
[dd/mm/yy] |
2011-10-24 |
[24/10/11] |
[ddd-mmm-yyyy] |
0141-10-24 |
[Tue-Oct-0141] |
(ddd.) mmm. dd, yyyy |
1999-09-23 |
(Thu.) Sep. 23, 1999 |
mmm dd'yy |
2020-12-05 |
Dec 05'20 |