DATFMT (Date Format) Keyword for Physical and Logical Files

Use this field-level keyword to specify the format of a date field. This keyword is valid only for date fields (data type L) or for logical file zoned fields (data type S), packed fields (data type P), or character fields (data type A) whose corresponding physical file fields are date fields (data type L).

The format of the keyword is:

DATFMT(date-format)

The date-format parameter specifies the format for the date. The following table describes the valid date formats and their default separator values for physical file fields.

Format Name	Date-Format Parameter	Date Format and Separator	Field Length	Example
Job Default	*JOB1
Month/Day/Year	*MDY1	mm/dd/yy	8	06/21/90
Day/Month/Year	*DMY1	dd/mm/yy	8	21/06/90
Year/Month/Day	*YMD1	yy/mm/dd	8	90/06/21
Julian	*JUL1	yy/ddd	6	90/172
International Standards Organization	*ISO	yyyy-mm-dd	10	1990-06-21
IBM USA Standard	*USA	mm/dd/yyyy	10	06/21/1990
IBM European Standard	*EUR	dd.mm.yyyy	10	21.06.1990
Japanese Industrial Standard Christian Era	*JIS	yyyy-mm-dd	10	1990-06-21
Notes: If this format is specified and the field allows the null value, you must specify a valid date for the DFT keyword for this field.

Other attributes of the DATFMT keyword for physical file fields are:

• You may specify only the DATFMT keyword on the date (L) data type.
• If you do not specify the DATFMT keyword, the default is *ISO.
• Field length values and decimal position values must be blank.

The following table describes the valid date formats and their default separator values for logical files.

Format Name	Date Format Parameter	Date Format	Zoned or Character Field Length	Zoned or Character Example	Packed Field Length	Packed Example (in Hex)
Job Default	*JOB
Month/Day/Year	*MDY	mmddyy	6,0	062196	6,0 or 7,0	'0062196F'X
Day/Month/Year	*DMY	ddmmyy	6,0	210696	6,0 or 7,0	'0210696F'X
Year/Month/Day	*YMD	yymmdd	6,0	960621	6,0 or 7,0	'0960621F'X
Month/Day/Year (4 digit year)	*MDYY1	mmddyyyy	8,0	06211996	8,0 or 9,0	'006211996F'X
Day/Month/Year (4 digit year)	*DMYY1	ddmmyyyy	8,0	21061996	8,0 or 9,0	'021062006F'X
Year/Month/Day (digit year)	*YYMD1	yyyymmdd	8,0	19960621	8,0 or 9,0	'019960621F'X
Julian	*JUL	yyddd	5,0	96172	5,0	'96172F'X
Julian (4 digit year)	*LONGJUL1	yyyyddd	7,0	1996172	7,0	'1996172F'X
Century/Day/Month/Year	*CMDY1	cmmddyy	7,0	0062196	7,0	'0062196F'X
Century/Day/Month/Year	*CDMY1	cddmmyy	7,0	1210696	7,0	'1210696F'X
Century/Year/Month/Day	*CYMD1	cyymmdd	7,0	1960621	7,0	'1960621F'X
Month/Year	*MY1,2	mmyy	4,0	0696	4,0 or 5,0	'00696F'X
Year/Month	*YM1,2	yymm	4,0	9606	4,0 or 5,0	'09606F'X
Month/Year (4 digit year)	*MYY1,2	mmyyyy	6,0	061996	6,0 or 7,0	'0061996F'X
Year/Month (4 digit year)	*YYM1,2	yyyymm	6,0	199606	6,0 or 7,0	'0199606F'X
International Standards Organization	*ISO	yyyymmdd	8,0	19960621	8,0 or 9,0	'019960621F'X
IBM USA Standard	*USA	mmddyyyy	8,0	19960621	8,0 or 9,0	'006211996F'X
IBM European Standard	*EUR	ddmmyyyy	8,0	21061996	8,0 or 9,0	'021061996F'X
Japanese Industrial Standard Christian Era	*JIS	yyyymmdd	8,0	19960621	8,0 or 9,0	'019960621F'X
Notes: These DATFMTs are not valid for the date (L) type field. They are only valid on logical file zoned, packed, or character types having a physical file based on date type fields. DATFMTs that do not have any "days" specified are implied to be day 1 of the specified month.

Other attributes of the DATFMT keyword specified for logical file fields are:

• The packed (P), zoned (S), character (A), and date (L) data types for logical file fields allow the DATFMT keyword.
• Field length may be specified for packed, character, and zoned logical file fields, but must be a valid value listed in the table.
• If you do not specify the DATFMT keyword and the data type is L, the default is the date format and field length from the corresponding physical file field.
• For packed and zoned data types, the decimal positions (positions 36 and 37) must be blank.
• For the packed data type, two lengths are sometimes allowed for a particular format. The larger length is better from a performance perspective. If you do not specify a length, the smaller length is used as the default.

Attributes of the DATFMT keyword that apply to both physical file fields and logical file fields include the following:

• If you specify *JOB, the default is the job attribute and the field length and is based on the job attribute without separators.
• If the DFT keyword is not specified, the default value is the current date.
• If you specify the *ISO, *USA, *EUR, or *JIS value, you cannot specify the DATSEP keyword. These date formats have a fixed separator.
• The DATFMT keyword overrides the job attribute for a date field. It does not change the system default.