Name
CDate Function
Named Arguments
No
Syntax
CDate(expression
)
-
expression
Use: Required
Data Type: String or Numeric
Any valid representation of a date and time
Return Value
expression
converted into a Date data type.
Description
Converts expression
to a Date data type.
The format of expression
—the order
of day, month, and year—is determined by the locale setting of
the local computer. To be certain a date is recognized correctly by
CDate
, the month, day, and year elements of
expression
must be in the same sequence as
the local computer’s regional settings; otherwise, the
CDate
function has no idea, for example, that 4
was supposed to be the fourth day of the month, not the month of
April.
Rules at a Glance
You can use any of the date delimiters specified in your computer’s regional settings; for most systems, this includes
,
,/
,-
, and .The earliest date that can be handled by the Date data type is 01/01/100. The latest date that can be handled by the Date data type is 12/31/9999.
Programming Tips and Gotchas
Use the
IsDate
function to determine ifexpression
can be converted to a date or time.If you pass an empty string to
CDate
, an error is generated.A modicum of intelligence has been built into the
CDate
function. It can determine the day and month from a string, regardless of their position in the string; this applies only where the day number is larger than 12, which automatically distinguishes it from the number of the month. For example, if the string “30/12/97” is passed into ...
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