Date trouble - vanishing slashes and unexpected errors

[Adam Abrams]

Hi all! I'm returning to FM after having used it years ago in a more rudimentary manner. But I've hit a baffling roadblock regarding date formats.

The trouble seems to be that slashes in my dates are being removed, causing an error message in FMP.

This show up even when I run the tutorial. When, as directed, I try a date-range search of "1/1/2009...6/30/2009", I get an error: "The provided find criteria is not valid. Enter a valid request before proceeding."

And, at that point, the slashes have been removed from my entered text, so it now shows "1 1 2009...6 30 2009".

Even when I add slashes by hand, though.... same error.

In my own database project I'm trying to build, I get a similar problem when I try to add a date to my date field, using the popup calendar. I click on a date in the little grid, and it gets rejected - also, the slashes get removed - and the error there says:

"This field is defined to contain a valid date in the range of years 1 to 4000 and should look like “12/25/2003” (four-digit year). You must enter a valid value."

What, may I ask, gives?

Thanks!

adam

[Lee Smith]

Hi Adam, and welcome to the Forum.

Is this date imported, entered by users, or the result of another field or fields, or calculation?

Might help for you to post a copy of the file.

Lee

Edited July 4, 2010 by Guest

[Adam Abrams]

Hi Lee!

It's directly entered by users. In the tutorial file, it's in the course of doing a Find that the problem comes up; in my own project, it's a simple entering of the date to a record that causes problems (even just selecting the default of today's date when popping up the little calendar).

This note in the tutorial seems telling:

"Note FileMaker Pro uses the date format specified in your system settings, so the date format you see and enter might differ from the format shown in this tutorial."

Does all this have to do with how my date formats are set up on my Mac's system preferences?

I'm enclosing the tutorial file in question. When I try to do a find by date range, typing "1/1/2009...6/30/2009" into the Date Paid field, I get the error. Actually, I get other errors doing a Find even when I type a single date or even just a year into that field.

It is just a beginners' tutorial file so I assume it will work fine on other's systems... but I'm enclosing it just to show what I'm working with - hopefully it's helpful.

Sample.fp7.zip

Edited July 4, 2010 by Guest

[Lee Smith]

I was able to do a find without a problem. This means if you created this file, that you and I have the same date structure in our Operating System.

However, you said this.

"Note FileMaker Pro uses the date format specified in your system settings, so the date format you see and enter might differ from the format shown in this tutorial."

Does all this have to do with how my date formats are set up on my Mac's system preferences?

This messages is suggesting that the date in your system does't match the one that was used to create the file? Or, the person entering the data is using a different date structure?

Check your preferences for Date and Time and verify that your date is the same as the files date.

So, a date entered as 12 Mar 2010 will not convert to your system if it is using 3/12/2010. Was this file created by you?

Lee

Edited July 4, 2010 by Guest

[Adam Abrams]

I found the answer, Lee! In System Preferences, there's four different kinds of date formats one can set: Short, Medium, Long, and Full. I had tried changing the Medium one since it was already closest to the MM/DD/YYYY format that seemed to be required... turns out it was the Short format that needed to be set that way. Now everything works!

Luckily this change doesn't seem to have affected anything I can see in my overall system display or anything, including my customized date/time in the menu bar. But it does seem odd that Filemaker would have such specific (and possibly intrusive) requirements as to how the whole system has its clock set - and perhaps more curiously, that things don't seem to work with the default OS X setup for date formats. I'm surprised this hasn't come up more often on the forums...

And I'm no newbie, but I had a heck of a time getting to the bottom of this one.

Strange... but hey, I'm glad it's solved! 8^)

Thanks and sorry to take up your time on this fairly basic stuff....

adam

[comment]

it does seem odd that Filemaker would have such specific (and possibly intrusive) requirements as to how the whole system has its clock set

Filemaker has no such requirement. It will accept dates either in the short date format used by the OS, or in the format set for the file (inherited from the OS when the file is created/cloned). You select which one to use in File > File Options… > Text.

[Adam Abrams]

Thanks for clarifying! That does make much more sense. Should never have doubted that FMP approached this in a logical fashion...

Though this explains why the tutorial, not created by me, had a conflict with my date setup, still unsure why my own file, which I created from scratch, seemed to also give me grief. But I'll take a closer look at how I'd set those date fields.

At least I'm certain now that it was not FMP's fault!

Thanks so much!

Adam

[comment]

I haven't tested what happens if the date format in use has no separators. Clearly, that's a problem since the input can be ambiguous.

Should never have doubted that FMP approached this in a logical fashion.

I do have an example or two...