EGL uses the strlib.defaultDateFormat system variable to interpret the text. The conversion algorithm is tolerant of different or missing separators but will take the order of year, month, and day of month from the default format.
EGL uses the strlib.defaultTimeFormat system variable to interpret the text. EGL looks for the fields in order of hours, minutes, and seconds, permitting any separators between them.
If you cannot be sure of the setting of the defaultTimeFormat, you can specify a time format for TIME type input fields to make sure that your program always converts the specified values in the same way.
EGL uses the strlib.defaultTimestampFormat system variable to interpret the text. If that fails, EGL looks for the timestamp fields in order from largest to smallest, permitting any separators between them.
EGL performs the conversion for the interval fields in order from largest to smallest, permitting any separators between them. The text may optionally begin with a leading + or -.
myDate = "aaa2006aa01a02222aa";Using the pattern of four digits for the year, followed by two digits each for the month and the day, EGL parses the string into the following groups of digits:
2006 01 02Finally, EGL returns the complete DATE value:
2006/01/02
myDate = "aa20051aa02222aa";In this case, EGL uses the same pattern of digits for the year, month, and day, but the second group of digits is cut short by a non-digit character. EGL parses the string into the following groups of digits:
2005 1 02Finally, EGL returns the complete DATE value:
2005/01/02