DATE
DATE operator converts its non-DATE operand to the DATE data type.
This non-DATE operand can be a DATETIME, character, or integer expression:
If you supply no operand to the DATE operator, it will read the system clock and return the current date as a character string.
The returned value will have this format:
weekday month day year
where weekday and month are three-character abbreviations for the day and month.
For example, this example program
MAIN
DEFINE my_date CHAR(15)
DEFINE tmp STRING
LET my_date = DATE
LET tmp = "This program was executed on ", my_date
CALL fgl_winmessage("DATE operator", tmp, "info")
CALL fgl_getkey()
END MAIN
will display this message on Monday, the 1st of January, 2001:
DATE operator can be also used to
- convert a character, integer, or DATETIME operand to a DATE value that is equivalent to a count of days since the 31st of December, 1899
- convert a properly formatted character string representation of a numeric date to a DATE value (the default format is mm/dd/yy and can be changed by the DBDATE environment variable)
- convert a DATETIME value to a negative or positive integer so that this returned integer is equal to the number of days between the specified date and December 31 , 1899
- obtain a DATE value from an integer (negative or positive) that specifies the number of days between the specified date and December 31, 1899
Other ways to format DATE values as a character string are
This example program shows how the DATE operator can be used:
MAIN
DEFINE my_date DATE,
my_date_time DATETIME YEAR TO DAY
LET my_date = DATE (" 02/09/04 ") -- this line requires the default DATE format
DISPLAY "DATE (\" 02/09/04 \") Result: ", my_date at 5,5
LET my_date = DATE (" 2004-02-09 ") -- it requires DBDATE to be set to Y4MD-
DISPLAY "DATE (\" 2004-02-09 \") Result: ", my_date at 6,5
LET my_date = DATE (" 09:04:02 ") -- this line requires that DBDATE be set to DY2M:
DISPLAY "DATE (\" 09:04:02 \") Result: ", my_date at 7,5
LET my_date = DATE(my_date) -- The operand can be a DATE variable, as illustrated,
DISPLAY "DATE(my_date) Result: ", my_date at 8,5
-- or getting the integer number of days since the last day of the year 1899
LET my_date = DATE (0) -- The result is: 12/31/1899
DISPLAY "DATE (0) Result: ", my_date at 9,5
LET my_date = DATE (38000) -- The result is: 15/1/2004
DISPLAY "DATE (38000) Result: ", my_date at 10,5
-- Or the operand can also be of data type DATETIME
LET my_date_time = CURRENT
DISPLAY "CURRENT Result: ", my_date_time at 11,5
LET my_date = DATE (my_date_time) -- the result is today's date
DISPLAY "DATE (my_date_time) Result: ", my_date_time at 12,5
LET my_date = DATE(CURRENT) -- the same result as previous
DISPLAY "DATE(CURRENT) Result: ", my_date_time at 13,5
CALL fgl_getkey()
END MAIN