DATFMT (Date Format) keyword for physical and logical files

You can 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
Note: 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 can 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:
  1. 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.
  2. 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 can 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 situations:
  • 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.

Example

The following example shows how to specify the DATFMT keyword.

|...+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7....+....8
00010A
00020A          R RECORD
00030A            DATFLD1         L         DATFMT(*JUL)
00040A            DATFLD2         L         DATFMT(*EUR)
     A

If the current date is June 21, 1990, the current system date format value is MDY, and the current system separator is /, DATFLD1 contains 90/172 (the 172nd day of the year 1990). DATFLD2 contains 21.06.1990.