Re: I guess I don't know dates

  Indeed, in effect, "a lot of trouble has gone into fooling" the
tools.  The external representation and DSPFFD effect match, but the
internal representation is not externalized [explicitly and clearly].
The database stores the data as a 4-byte binary\integer, but the
database returns a /formatted string/ to represent the date value:

IBM i 7.1 Information Center -> Database -> Reference -> SQL reference
-> Language elements -> Data types -> Datetime values
_Date_
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v7r1m0/topic/db2/rbafzch2date.htm
" ...
Date - 4 byte binary Scaliger number
... "

The link you provided says nothing about disk storage. It just says
"internal representation", which, given the trouble IBM has gone to
maintain the illusion of formatted dates, doesn't necessarily imply
disk.

Now, I have just done some experimentation which corroborates the idea
that date fields are just 4 bytes on disk, but I'm confused why IBM
would be so adamant about hiding this. For packed and binary fields,
IBM is happy to have the "field length" and "buffer length" be
mismatched, with the latter showing the actual number of bytes used.
Why not do the same for dates? Would it not be simpler to implement,
as well as more informative to people using DSPFD, DSPFFD, DSPPFM,
etc.?

To Jon Paris: Sorry for doubting you.

John