Panorama > Data Types > Dates
 
Date Patterns
In Panorama, dates are represented as a number which is the number of days since January 1, 4713 B.C. For example, the date August 7, 1991 corresponds to the number 2,448,476. Most people aren't too interested in knowing that a certain day is 2 million plus days from some pre-historic date. Date patterns allow you to control how dates are formatted when they are converted to text.

##Common Date Patterns##

Panorama date patterns supports a wide variety of date formats. The table below lists several common date patterns. Date patterns must be surrounded by quotes.

Date Pattern Display
3/9/2002 mm/dd/yy 3/9/02
3/9/2002 MM/DD/YY 03/09/02
3/9/2002 mm-dd-yyyy 3-9-2002
3/9/2002 dd-MON-yy 9-MAR-02
3/9/2002 dd-Month-yy 9-March-02
3/9/2002 Month dd, yyyy March 9, 2002
3/9/2002 Month ddnth, yyyy March 9th, 2002
3/9/2002 DayOfWeek, Month ddnth, yyyy Saturday, March 9th, 2002
3/9/2002 qq"q"yy 1q02
3/9/2002 "Week" ww "of" yyyy Week 11 of 2002
3/9/2002 YYYYMMDD 20020309
5/23/2002 Quarter "Quarter" yyyy Second Quarter 2002
7/11/2004 Qtr "Qtr" yyyy 3rd Qtr 2004
3/9/2002 "Day" dd, "Month" mm Day 9, Month 3
3/1/2002 ddnth "day of" Month, yyyy 1st day of March, 2002
3/2/2002 ddnth "day of" Month, yyyy 2nd day of March, 2002
3/9/2002 ddnth "day of" Month, yyyy 9th day of March, 2002
3/1/1867 mmnth "month of" yyyy 3rd month of 1867

##Components##

There are 21 different basic components that can be used as part of a date pattern. A date pattern is built up by combining these components together with punctuation to build a complete pattern. Unlike Panorama 6 and earlier versions, components must be separated by one or more characters. There are 6 components that combine month day and year into a single component.

Component Example Description
yy 02 Year (within century)
yyyy 2002 Year (including century)
qq 2 Quarter (numeric)
qtr 2nd Quarter (abbreviated)
quarter second Quarter (spelled out)
mm 9 Month (numeric)
MM 09 Month (with leading zero)
mon sep Month (abbreviated)
month september Month (spelled out)
ww 46 Week (within year)
dd 5 Day (numeric)
DD 05 Day (with leading zero)
day tue Day Of Week (abbreviated)
dayofweek tuesday Day Of Week (spelled out)
DDMMYY 3 Day, Month, Year (with no separators)
MMDDYY 3 Month, Day, Year (with no separators)
YYMMDD 3 Year, Month, Day (with no separators)
DDMMYYYY 3 Day, Month, Century, Year (with no separators)
MMDDYYYY 3 Month, Day, Century, Year (with no separators)
YYYYMMDD 3 Century, Year, Month, Day (with no separators)

##Upper/Lower Case##

Some of these components (qtr, quarter, mon, month, day, and dayofweek) can be either upper or lower case. The table below shows how a component can be displayed in all lower case, initial caps, or all upper case.

Pattern Display
month september
Month September
MONTH SEPTEMBER
dayofweek friday
DayOfWeek Friday
DAYOFWEEK FRIDAY

##Quoted Literals##

If you need to include the words qtr, quarter, mon, month, or day in your date, you must quote them so that they are not treated as components. Be sure to use regular straight quotes, not smart (curly) quotes. Since the text itself contains quotes, you will need to surround the pattern with a different quote character. In the following examples we have used {} as the quote characters surrounding each pattern.

Pattern Converted Text
{Quarter "Quarter" YYYY} First Quarter 1992
{"Day" dd, "Month" mm} Day 9, Month 3

You can add the suffix nth to the mm, ww, or dd components, as shown below.

Date Pattern Converted Text
3/1/89 {ddnth "day of" Month} 1st day of March
3/2/89 {ddnth "day of" Month} 2nd day of March
3/9/89 {ddnth "day of" Month} 9th day of March
3/9/89 {Month ddnth, yyyy} March 9th, 1989
3/9/89 {mmnth "month of" yyyy} 3rd month of 1989

Panorama automatically adds the correct suffix.

See Also