Topic Dates in askSam

 Applies_To askSam

    Version 4.X and 5.X

Last_Update 07/31/2002

Question How does askSam handle dates and what is the File Property called "Interpret dates with 2 digit years as:" for?

Answer Because of y2k date problem we added a "File Property" called "Interpret

dates with 2 digit years as:" with two options "19xx" and "20xx". So if

you have dates with years from 2000 or greater and you are using a 2

digit year format you must change this setting to "20xx" if you have

mixed dates from 1999 and 2000 or greater leave this setting alone and

change your date format to a 4 digit year.

The "Date format:" "File Property" is also very important because it

helps askSam interprets the date by giving it a hint of where the month,

day and year will be located. Here is an example of where it would be

impossible for askSam to automatically interpret the date unless this

setting is correct.

2/3/02 - This could be Feb 3, 2002 or Mar 2, 2002 or 1902

1/3/2  - This is a valid date but it could be Jan, 3 2001 or March 1,

1902 or March 2, 2001 or Feb 3, 1901

If you have a dates with the following format: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 15:43:59

+0100

askSam will parse the Sat, and ignore it then parse 27 - Now if the Date

format is set to "YMD" 27 will be read as either 1927 or 2027 depending

on the "Interpret dates with 2 digit years as:" file option. This would

be wrong but that is what the files date format is set to. So you must

have the date format correct before askSam can parse the dates

correctly. The "Interpret dates with 2 digit years as:" is also very

important unless you use 4 digit years in all the fields in your file.

If your dates have months of March, or Mar and the date format is

anything but YMD askSam can figure out that is a month. The time at the

end of the date is not used at all and is ignored in searching and sort

of dates.

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