SET DATE Command

Specifies the format for the display of Date and DateTime expressions.

SET DATE [TO] AMERICAN | ANSI | BRITISH | FRENCH | GERMAN | ITALIAN
 | JAPAN | TAIWAN | USA | MDY | DMY | YMD| SHORT | LONG

Remarks

Here are the settings and the resulting date formats:

Setting	Format
AMERICAN	mm/dd/yy
ANSI	yy.mm.dd
BRITISH/FRENCH	dd/mm/yy
GERMAN	dd.mm.yy
ITALIAN	dd-mm-yy
JAPAN	yy/mm/dd
TAIWAN	yy/mm/dd
USA	mm-dd-yy
MDY	mm/dd/yy
DMY	dd/mm/yy
YMD	yy/mm/dd
SHORT	Short date format determined by the Windows Control Panel short date setting.
LONG	Long date format determined by the Windows Control Panel long date setting.

Note

When SET DATE is set to SHORT or LONG, a date before {^1601-01-01} is invalid and generates an error.

The default date setting is AMERICAN.

The SET DATE setting also determines how the date appears in datetime expressions.

If DATE is set to SHORT or LONG, the SET CENTURY, SET MARK, SET HOURS, and SET SECONDS settings are ignored.

SET DATE is scoped to the current data session.