Specify the format of the input data using y or Y for years,
m or M for months, d or D for days, and j or J for Julian days.
 The length of the format string is the width of the input column.
| Option | Meaning | 
|---|
| yyyy or YYYY yy or YY | Represents number of year.
                            Default is 1900. | 
| mm or MM | Represents number of
                            month. Always use leading zeros for number of the month where
                            appropriate, for example '05' for May. If you omit the month from a
                                DATE value, the day is treated as
                            a Julian date. If you enter only the month, for example, '03', SAP Sybase IQ applies the default year
                            and day and converts it to '1900-03-01'. | 
| dd or DD jjj or JJJ | Represents number of day.
                            Default day is 01. Always use leading zeros for number of day where
                            appropriate, for example '01' for first day. J or j indicates a Julian
                            day (1 to 366) of the year. | 
On input, the case of the format code is ignored.
On output, the case of the format code has the effect:
- Mixed case (for example, “Dd”) means do not pad with zeros.
- Same case (for example, “DD” or “dd”) means do pad with
                    zeros.
For example, a time is output as 17:23:03.774 using the default time format, but as
            17:23:3.774 using 'HH:NN:Ss.SSS'.
Sample DATE format options show how date input data look and how to specify the
            format with the DATE conversion option.
| Input Data | Format
                            Specification | 
|---|
| 12/31/09 | DATE ('MM/DD/YY') | 
| 12-31-09 | DATE ('MM-DD-YY') | 
| 20091231 | DATE ('YYYYMMDD') | 
| 12/09 | DATE ('MM/YY') | 
| 2009/123 | DATE ('YYYY/JJJ') | 
General rules for specifying dates include:
- The DATE specification must be in parentheses and enclosed in
                    single or double quotes.
- SAP Sybase IQ stores only
                    the numbers of the year, month, and day; it does not store any other characters
                    that might appear in the input data. However, if the input data contains other
                    characters, for example, slashes (/), dashes (-), or blanks to separate the
                    month, day, and year, the DATE format must show where those characters appear so
                    they can be ignored.
- Use any character other than Y, M, J, or D to indicate the
                    separator character you want SAP Sybase IQ
                    to skip over. You can even use blanks.
- If a DATE format includes only a year and a day number within
                    the year, SAP Sybase IQ treats the date as
                    a Julian date. For example, 2009-33 is the 33rd day in the year 2009, or
                    February 2, 2009.
- If a year is specified with only two digits, for example
                    “5/27/32”, then SAP Sybase IQ converts it
                    to 19yy or 20yy, depending on the year and on the setting of the NEAREST_CENTURY option.
| NEAREST_CENTURY
                                        Setting | Year Specified
                                        As | Years
                                        Assumed | 
|---|
 | Default
                                        (50) | 00 - 49 50 - 99 | 2000 - 2049 1950 - 1999 |  | 0 | Any | 1900s |  | 100 | Any | 2000s |