I tried searching the documentation for this but couldn't find anything. I have output in which some of the columns are start and end dates. I formatted them YY-M-D. When output is to html the dashes remain. When I switch output to format comma for a csv file, it gets rid of the dashes in my file. Why is this and how do I keep it from doing this?

malinda

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

This is from the IBI site...may shed some light on your situation.

Smart Date fields will only store the numeric part of the date with no
formatting. When the date shows up in a styled report (HTML/PDF), the dates
is printed with formatting. Since a data hold file (CSV/ALPHA) is a data file
and not a formatted output, you are seeing just the 20090903 value.

There is a function called DATETRAN which will convert a smart date to an
alpha translation of the date. See this example:

DEFINE FILE CAR
RUN_DATE/MDYY=&MDYY;
DATE2/A10=DATETRAN(RUN_DATE, '(MDYY)', '(-)', 'EN', 10, DATE2)
END
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT RUN_DATE DATE2
BY COUNTRY
ON TABLE HOLD AS CSVDATE FORMAT COM
END

This will convert the smart date RUN_DATE to a translated alpha date that
uses dashes for the delimitter.

If this is run and the output file is viewed with a text editor (like notepad),
the dashes will be seen. If the CSV file is opened using Excel, however,
Excel will apply it's own formatting for the date field.