• *add_days Function
• *add_hours Function
• *add_minutes Function
• *add_months Function
• *add_seconds Function
• *add_years Function
• *days_between Function
• *hours_between Function
• *minutes_between Function
• *months_between Function
• *seconds_between Function
• *years_between Function
• a5_add_timestamp Function
• A5_CONVERT_DATE_STRING Function
• A5_CONVERT_DATETIME_STRING Function
• a5_embeddedcalendargenie Function
• a5_get_date_format Function
• A5_GETDATEHTML Function
• a5_gettimeformats Function
• a5_gettimevalue Function
• a5_normalizedate Function
• A5_RFC1123DATE Function
• A5_RFC822DATE Function
• A5_RFC850DATE Function
• A5_T_FROM_RFCDATE Function
• a5_time_format_help Function
• A5_TIMESTAMP Function
• ADD_BUS_DAYS Function
• ADDMONTHS Function
• ADDYEARS Function
• AGE Function
• BUS_DAYS_BETWEEN Function
• CDATE Function
• CDOW Function
• CMONTH Function
• CONVERT_TYPE Function
• CShortTime Function
• CTIME Function
• CTOD Function
• CTODT Function
• CTOT Function
• CYEAR Function
• Date and Time Conversion Matrix
• Date and Time Format Elements
• Date and Time Functions
• DATE Function
• Date_FirstDayOfMonth Function
• Date_FirstDayOfPreviousMonth Function
• DATE_FORMAT Function
• DATE_FORMATS_BUILT_IN Function
• date_from_utc_date Function
• date_is_anniversary Function
• date_is_in_last_month Function
• DATE_IS_IN_MONTH Function
• date_is_in_previous_quarter Function
• date_is_in_previous_week Function
• date_is_in_previous_year Function
• date_is_in_same_week Function
• date_is_in_this_month Function
• date_is_in_this_month_todate Function
• date_is_in_this_quarter Function
• date_is_in_this_quarter_todate Function
• date_is_in_this_week Function
• date_is_in_this_week_todate Function
• date_is_in_this_year Function
• date_is_in_this_year_todate Function
• date_is_today Function
• date_is_yesterday Function
• Date_LastDayOfMonth Function
• Date_LastDayOfPreviousMonth Function
• date_quarternumber Function
• date_quarterstartend Function
• date_to_utc_date Function
• DATE_VALUE Function
• DAY Function
• DAY_NUMBER Function
• DMY Function
• DOW Function
• DOW_ISO Function
• DTOC Function
• DTOS Function
• FixDateString Function
• FORMAT_DATA Function
• GetTimeZoneOffset Function
• GMT Function
• Holidays
• httpdate Function
• international_days_of_week Function
• international_months Function
• JDATE Function
• JTODATE Function
• MDY Function
• MONTH Function
• MONTH_END Function
• MONTH_NUMBER Function
• MONTH_START Function
• NOW Function
• NTH_DOW Function
• ODBC_DT_TO_D Function
• Predefined Date Formats
• ProgressTimed Function
• SCANTIME Function
• ShortTime_Extract Function
• STOD Function
• Time and Date Functions
• TIME Function
• time_gmt_to_local Function
• time_to_unixtimestamp Function
• TIME_VAR Function
• timez Function
• TOSECONDS Function
• TOTIME Function
• TZ_OFFSET_TO_C Function
• unixtimestamp_to_time Function
• WEEK Function
• WEEK_ISO Function
• WEEK_ISO_FULL Function
• WIN_TIME Function
• WMI_DATE_TO_TIME Function
• wmi_datetime_to_time Function
• YEAR Function
• YearStart_ISO Function

DTOS Function

Syntax

Arguments

Date_Time_ValueDate

A variable containing a date value or a character string containing a legitimate representation of a date value (ISDATE(Date_Value) = .T.).

Returns

Formatted_DateCharacter

The Date_Value formatted into a character string.

Description

Converts a date into a character value in the form 'YYYYMMDD'.

Discussion

DTOS() converts a Date_Time_Value to a Formatted_Date character string in the form "YYYYMMDD." This function is useful for constructing multi-level indexes that contain both character and date fields.

Indexes containing the DTOS() function order dates chronologically (year, then month, then day), while those containing DTOC() order dates by month, day, and year.

Examples:

INV_DATE = {12/18/1993}
? dtos(INV_DATE)
= "19931218"

Assume you want to order an employee table by department and within each department by seniority. The table has a character field, DEPT, and a date field, STARTDATE. Use the following index expression:

DEPT + dtos(START)

The following Employee table shows the order created by this index:

Compare this result with the DTOC() function. If the DTOC() function is used in the above index expression instead of DTOS(), the following ordering results:

Entering search criteria to search on a date field presents a problem because you cannot type in a date directly as a text string. You must either surround the text you enter with the CTOD() function, or use a function to convert the date field to a character field before comparing it with the text.

If you want to search a date field, BIRTHDAY, for the date, "September 20, 1966," you can enter the following criteria:

dtos({09/20/66}) -> 19660920
dtos(BIRTHDAY) = "19660920" or
BIRTHDAY = ctod("09/20/1966") or
BIRTHDAY = ctod("09/20/66") or
BIRTHDAY = {9/20/66}

See Also

• Date and Time Functions
• Predefined Date Formats
• Date and Time Format Elements