OOFile Manual

Date format masks

Format masks for a date field allow you to specify in what format the date appears for example: 25th August 1998 or 25-08-98 etc. This means that you can change between digits and words, specify whether you want 'th' or 'st's following the day number, or use 3 letters only for the month/day or use 2 or 4 digits for the year etc.

We set the date format by using the function formatMask() and passing in the string with the formatting (much like passing a format string to printf). The valid formats to pass in are listed below. The spaces between the Format masks can be anything you like except brackets (used internally by OOFILE). So you can have each mask seperated, for example, by ":" or "-", by spaces or by any other character you'd like to use. Thi is useful as you can match it up to whatever delimiters you are used to for the purposes of parsing through the data later.

For example, for the table Invoicing, I could format the field DateDue this way:

	Invoicing.DateDue.formatMask("ddth Month YYYY");

An example of the date it would return would be: 25th August 1998

Another example might be:

	Invoicing.DateDue.formatMask("dd:MM:YY");

This would give: 25:08:98

Below is a list of the date formats usable and what they will give for you when used.

DDDD Dddd dddd: Will write the day number in 4 columns eg " 25" or " 1". Capitalisation does not matter for this one, but is included so we don't have to worry about which letters are capitalised.
DDD Ddd ddd: Will write the day number in 3 columns eg " 25" or " 1". Capitalisation does not matter for this one, but is included so we don't have to worry about which letters are capitalised.
DDTH: This will write the day number followed by "ST", "ND", "RD" or "TH". eg "25TH" or "1ST".
ddth: This will write the day number followed by "st", "nd", "rd" or "th". eg "25th" or "1st"
DD: This will write the day number in 2 columns eg "25" or " 1".
DAYNAME: This will write the name of the day in all-caps eg "TUESDAY" or "FRIDAY"
Dayname: This will write the name of the day with the first letter capitalised eg "Tuesday" or "Friday"
dayname: This will write the name of the day in all lower letters eg "tuesday" or "friday"
DAY: This will write the first 3 letters of the day's name in all-caps eg "TUE" or "FRI"
Day: This will write the first 3 letters of the day's name with the first letter capitalised eg "Tue" or "Fri"
day: This will write the first 3 letters of the day's name in all lower letters eg "tue" or "fri"
D: This will write the first letter of the day's name in a capital letter eg "T" or "F"
MMMM Mmmm mmmm: These will write the month number in 4 columns, case of these are ignored. eg " 8" or " 12"
MMM Mmm mmm: These will write the month number in 3 columns, case of these are ignored. eg " 8" or " 12"
MM: This will write the month number in the more standard 2 column format eg "08" or "12"
MONTH: This will write the full name of the month in all-caps eg "AUGUST" or "DECEMBER"
Month: This will write the full name of the month with the first letter capitalised eg "August" or "December"
month: This will write the full name of the month in all lower letters eg "august" or "december"
MON: This will write the first 3 letters of the month's name in all-caps eg "AUG" or "DEC"
Mon: This will write the first 3 letters of the month's name with the first letter capitalised eg "Aug" or "Dec"
mon: This will write the first 3 letters of the month's name in all lower letters eg "aug" or "dec"
M: This will write the first letter of the month's name in a capital letter eg "A" or "D"
YYYY: This will write the full 4-digit year eg "1998" or "2001"
YY: This will write the last two digits fo the year eg "98" or "01"
YEAR: This will write the year in words?

An example of the use of date format masks is provided in ooftst33

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