I have a SQL server table that has a date field in it called LOADDATE. In the description of the column in SQL Server it says LOADDATE (date, not null)

When I have a DEFINE using the DOWK(LOADDATE, 'A4') I get blanks returned.
When I just report out the LOADDATE field I get 2016/08/29
When I substitute &YYMD in DOWK(&YYMD, 'A4') then MON is returned as it should be.
When I report out &YYMD by itself I get the date in the 2016/08/29 format.

So why if the two fields have the same format does the DOWK(LOADDATE, 'A4') not work?

Thanks Trudy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Trudy,

DOWK expects the date in legacy I8YYMD format (like &YYMD). Your LOADDATE will be defined as a SmartDate in the FOCUS synonym. Try this to print the day of week for a SmartDate:

TABLE FILE xxxx
PRINT LOADDATE/WT
.
.
END

The PRINT LOADDATE/WT did give me the day of the week but I want to filter on that value so I was looking more for a DEFINE way of getting to the day of week. Sorry I should have made that clearer in the original post.

You could probably save yourself some trouble and use a SQL Server function

DEFINE FILE xxxx
 DOW/A10  WITH yyyy = DB_EXPR( DATENAME( dw,  START_DATE ) ); $ 
END  

It will be the full weekname in mixed case, but you can probably work with that. And there is no fear that it will not be translated.

Got what I needed by creating a define with the following

  
DOWK(DATECVT(LOADDATE, 'YYMD', 'I8YYMD'), 'A4')

Thanks for all the help!