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toDate

Function: toDate()

Converts a standard PhixFlow date string (e.g. 20120521 or 20120521.172108) into a true date, or a non-standard date string into a true date if supplied with a format pattern.

Returns the date if dateString is a true date.

Returns null if dateString is null.

Syntax

toDate(dateString)

toDate(dateString, formatString)

ArgumentTypeDescription
dateStringStringString to be converted into a date.
formatStringStringOptional argument that which allows for a date and time pattern string to represent the format of dateString.

Examples

toDate("20100714")

Returns the date 14/07/2010.

toDate(in.ChargeDate,"yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss")

where in.ChargeDate has the value "2002/12/09 09:03:42", returns the date/time 09/12/2002 09:03:42

toDate(in.ChargeDate,"yyyy MMM d, HH-mm-ss")

where in.ChargeDate has the value "2002 Dec 9, 09-03-42", returns the date/time 09/12/2002 09:03:42

toDate("2010.July.04 AD 12:08 PM","y.MMM.d G h:m a")

Returns the date/time 04/07/2010 12:08:00

Date Format Pattern

The following values are available for use in dateFormat patterns:

SymbolMeaningPresentationExamples
GeratextAD
Ccentury of era (>=0)number20
Yyear of era (>=0)year1996
xweekyearyear1996
wweek of weekyearnumber27
eday of weeknumber2
Eday of weektextTuesday; Tue
yyearyear1996
Dday of yearnumber189
Mmonth of yearmonthJuly; Jul; 07
dday of monthnumber10
ahalfday of daytextPM
Khour of halfday (0~11)number0
hclockhour of halfday (1~12)number12
Hhour of day (0~23)number0
kclockhour of day (1~24)number24
mminute of hournumber30
ssecond of minutenumber55
Sfraction of secondnumber978
ztime zonetextPacific Standard Time; PST
Ztime zone offset/idzone-0800; -08:00; America/Los_Angeles
'escape for textdelimiter 
''single quoteliteral'

The number of letters used in the pattern determines the format.

  • Text: If the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, the full form is used; otherwise a short or abbreviated form is used if available.
  • Number: The minimum number of digits. Shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount.
  • Year: Numeric presentation for year and weekyear fields are handled specially. For example, if the count of 'y' is 2, the year will be displayed as the zero-based year of the century, which is two digits.
  • Month: 3 or over, use text, otherwise use number.
  • Zone: 'Z' outputs offset without a colon, 'ZZ' outputs the offset with a colon, 'ZZZ' or more outputs the zone id.
  • Zone names: Time zone names ('z') cannot be parsed.
  • Any characters in the pattern that are not in the ranges of ['a'..'z'] and ['A'..'Z'] will be treated as quoted text. For instance, characters like ':', '.', ' ', '#' and '?' will appear in the resulting time text even they are not embraced within single quotes.

See Also

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