Submitted by Tom on 2009/02/03 05:43
1) what is the advantage of having a date field for dates as opposed to a text field -
I use the format YYYY-MM-DD so it sorts correctly as text or date. To me the advantage of having a text field is that I can, say, add
"2009-04"  without giving a specific date - of course that may screw up the sort, I'm not sure
or
"2009-01-20ish"    (!)
both of which surprisingly sort okay.
 
2) I want to ask how to convert fields but gotta figure out to-what so I'll wait see the response to #1

 

Comments

YYYY-MM-DD is the only format which sorts well, but it isn't used very much. A few areas of Europe and here in Québec (part of Canada) use it. DD-MM-YYYY and MM-DD-YYYY is much more common.
 
If you use YYYY-MM-DD, you can use a text field for dates. Similarly, I've used a text field for numbers (which allows stuff like "34.2 best estimate to date")
 
If you do, and if you want to do date computations (i.e. YourDate -10, YourDate - Now), simply create another field, of "date" type, and (1) set an auto-assign rule or (2) an equation to assign it or (3) create a DB generated field value.

Armando

2009/02/03 10:52

Permalink

[quote=Pierre_Admin]
If you do, and if you want to do date computations (i.e. YourDate -10, YourDate - Now), simply create another field, of "date" type, and (1) set an auto-assign rule or (2) an equation to assign it or (3) create a DB generated field value.
[/quote]
 
Nice tip.... Thanks.