Entering the Date

Dates consist of a month, day, and year and can be entered in a variety of formats for date, datetime, bigdatetime, bigtime and smalldatetime.

You can enter the entire date as an unseparated string of 4, 6, or 8 digits, or use slash (/), hyphen (-), or period (.) separators between the date parts.
- When entering dates as unseparated strings, use the appropriate format for that string length. Use leading zeros for single-digit years, months, and days. Dates entered in the wrong format may be misinterpreted or result in errors.
- When entering dates with separators, use the set dateformat option to determine the expected order of date parts. If the first date part in a separated string is four digits, SAP ASE interprets the string as yyyy-mm-dd format.
Some date formats accept 2-digit years (yy):
- Numbers less than 50 are interpreted as 20yy. For example, 01 is 2001, 32 is 2032, and 49 is 2049.
- Numbers equal to or greater than 50 are interpreted as 19yy. For example, 50 is 1950, 74 is 1974, and 99 is 1999.
You can specify the month as either a number or a name. Month names and their abbreviations are language-specific and can be entered in uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case.
If you omit the date portion of a datetime or smalldatetime value, SAP ASE uses the default date of January 1, 1900. If you omit the date portion of a bigdatetime a default value of January 1, 0001 is added.

This table describes the acceptable formats for entering the date portion of a datetime or smalldatetime value:

Date Formats for Date and Time Datatypes
Date Format	Interpretation	Sample Entries	Meaning
4-digit string with no separators	Interpreted as `yyyy`. Date defaults to Jan 1 of the specified year.	“1947”	Jan 1 1947
6-digit string with no separators	Interpreted as `yymmdd`. For `yy` < 50, year is 20`yy`. For `yy` >= 50, year is 19`yy`.	“450128” “520128”	Jan 28 2045 Jan 28 1952
8-digit string with no separators	Interpreted as `yyyymmdd`.	“20150415”	Apr 15 2015
String consisting of 2-digit month, day, and year separated by slashes, hyphens, or periods, or a combination of the above	The dateformat and language set options determine the expected order of date parts. For us_english, the default order is `mdy`. For `yy` < 50, year is interpreted as 20`yy`. For `yy` >= 50, year is interpreted as 19`yy`.	“12/15/94” “12.15.94” “12-15-94” “12.15/94”	All of these entries are interpreted as Dec 15 1994 when the dateformat option is set to mdy.
String consisting of 2-digit month, 2-digit day, and 4-digit year separated by slashes, hyphens, or periods, or a combination of the above	The dateformat and language set options determine the expected order of date parts. For us_english, the default order is `mdy`.	“04/15.1994”	Interpreted as Apr 15 1994 when the dateformat option is set to mdy.
Month is entered in character form (either full month name or its standard abbreviation), followed by an optional comma	If 4-digit year is entered, date parts can be entered in any order.	“April 15, 1994” “1994 15 apr” “1994 April 15” “15 APR 1994”	All of these entries are interpreted as Apr 15 1994.
	If day is omitted, all 4 digits of year must be specified. Day defaults to the first day of the month.	“apr 1994”	Apr 1 1994
	If year is only 2 digits (`yy`), it is expected to appear after the day. For `yy` < 50, year is interpreted as 20`yy`. For `yy` >= 50, year is interpreted as 19`yy`.	“mar 16 17” “apr 15 94”	Mar 16 2017 Apr 15 1994
The empty string “”	Date defaults to Jan 1 1900.	“”	Jan 1 1900