DateFormat

Overview

Open the Data load editor and add the load script below to a new tab.

The load script contains:

• A dataset of dates.

• The DateFormat function, which will use the US date format.

In this example, a dataset is loaded into a table named 'Transactions'. It includes a date field. The US DateFormat definition is used. This pattern will be used for implicit text to date conversion when the text dates are loaded.

Load script

Set DateFormat='MM/DD/YYYY'; 

Transactions: 
LOAD 
date, 
month(date) as month, 
id, 
amount 
INLINE  
[ 
date,id,amount 
01/01/2022,1,1000 
02/01/2022,2,2123 
03/01/2022,3,4124 
04/01/2022,4,2431 
]; 						

Results

Load the data and open a sheet. Create a new table and add these fields as dimensions:

• date

• month

Create this measure:

=sum(amount)

The DateFormat definition MM/DD/YYYY is used for implicit conversion of text to dates, which is why the date field is properly interpreted as a date. The same format is used to display the date, as shown in the results table.

Overview

Open the Data load editor and add the load script below to a new tab.

The load script contains:

• The same dataset from the previous example.

• The DateFormat function, which will use the ‘DD/MM/YYYY’ format.

Load script

SET DateFormat='DD/MM/YYYY'; 
Transactions: 
LOAD 
date, 
month(date) as month, 
id, 
amount 
INLINE  
[ 
date,id,amount 
01/01/2022,1,1000 
02/01/2022,2,2123 
03/01/2022,3,4124 
04/01/2022,4,2431 
]; 					

Results

Load the data and open a sheet. Create a new table and add these fields as dimensions:

• date

• month

Create this measure:

=sum(amount)

Because the DateFormat definition was set to ‘DD/MM/YYYY’, you can see that the two digits after the first “/” symbol have been interpreted as the month, resulting in all records being from the month of January.

Overview

Open the Data load editor and add the load script below to a new tab.

The load script contains:

• A dataset with dates in numerical format.

• The DateFormat variable, which will use the ‘DD/MM/YYYY’ format.

• The date() variable.

Load script

SET DateFormat='MM/DD/YYYY'; 
						
Transactions: 
Load 
date(numerical_date), 
month(date(numerical_date)) as month, 
id, 
amount 
Inline  
[ 
numerical_date,id,amount 
43254,1,1000 
43255,2,2123 
43256,3,4124 
43258,4,2431 
]; 						

Results

Load the data and open a sheet. Create a new table and add these fields as dimensions:

• date

• month

Create this measure:

=sum(amount)

In the load script, you use the date() function to convert the numerical date into a date format. Because you do not provide a specified format as a second argument in the function, the DateFormat is used. This results in the date field using the format ‘MM/DD/YYYY’.

Overview

Open the Data load editor and add the load script below to a new tab.

The load script contains:

• A dataset of dates.

• The DateFormat variable, which uses the ‘DD/MM/YYYY' format but is uncommented by forward slashes.

Load script

// SET DateFormat='DD/MM/YYYY'; 

 
Transactions: 
Load 
date, 
month(date) as month, 
id, 
amount 
Inline  
[ 
date,id,amount 
22-05-2022,1,1000 
23-05-2022,2,2123 
24-05-2022,3,4124 
25-05-2022,4,2431 
]; 

Results

Load the data and open a sheet. Create a new table and add these fields as dimensions:

• date

• month

Create this measure:

=sum(amount)

In the initial load script, the DateFormat being used is the default ‘MM/DD/YYYY’. Because the date field in the transactions dataset is not in this format, the field is not interpreted as a date. This is shown in the results table where the month field values are null.

You can verify the interpreted data types in the Data model viewer by inspecting the date field’s “Tags” properties.

This can be solved by enabling the DateFormat system variable:

// SET DateFormat='DD/MM/YYYY';

Remove the double forward slashes and reload the data.