Formating dates

[davepain]

Hi,

I have an import from a ODBC link, the data in this import contains a date field, but it is formatted "20012003", if i change the date format on the field to "20/01/2003" it still imports as "20012003" any ideas?

Thanks,

Dave.

[Lee Smith]

Hi Dave,

Two ideas:

Make sure the field is a "Date" type field. Also, check in layout mode that you have selected how the date is to be displayed. (i.e. select the field and then go to the Menu - Format - Date: This defaults to "Leave date formatted as entered: So, you will want to select the options available in order to have it display the "/".

Or, It may need to be converted to a date field via a calculation:

I'd try a simple TexttoDate calculation first. If that failed, you might need to provide a full calculation to change each part to the date such as - Month (Middle(NumberField, 3, 2), Day (Middle(NumberField, 0, 2)), and Year (Right(NumberField, 4), Or all together just insert this (this will provide a month, day and year format)

TextToDate(Middle(YourField, 3, 2) & "/" &

Middle(YourField, 0, 2) & "/" & Right(YourField, 4))

To modify it to show a day, month, year format, you might try this:

TextToDate(Left(YourField, 2) & "/" &

Middle(YourField, 3, 2) & "/" & Right(YourField, 4))

Note: change the field "YourField" in these calculation to your field name and be sure that the field is "Text" type.

Unfortunately, I can't verify the second calculation, due a different system setup.

HTH

Lee