RE: Date conversion technique, alpha to Numeric

In database if you use DATFMT you get that result in your queries and SQL.
In RPG IV, everything is pretty much converted to *ISO format when its brought
into the program.
In RPG IV, you can declare a field as any date format you want to have default
conversion to that format when moving it to a non-date field.
Today, except for passing parameters, it is true that the usability of the
DATFMT keyword in defining date fields is nearly worthless.


-Bob Cozzi
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-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Booth Martin
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 12:50 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: Date conversion technique, alpha to Numeric

Yes, except for the part about defining the file's field as a date type 
  with a DATFMT.  Why would anyone do that?  That seems to me to be 
degrading the appeal of a date field.

Joe Pluta wrote:

From: Booth Martin

Then I misunderstood this sentence: "it's a conversion from the file's
*MDY format to your *ISO program format."

When the file is read in from the database, the buffer that is passed to the
caller has a date field in it.  That date field is formatted in the manner
specified by the DATFMT keyword on the field definition.  However, if you
then specify an I-spec for that field with a DIFFERENT format, RPG will then
convert the buffer data (which is itself a conversion from the 4-byte
internal format) into the format you specified.

Make sense?

Joe