FileMaker Date Formats & Functions
When first starting with FileMaker, I remember learning all the default Date/Time/Timestamp functions. The documentation for FileMaker is great and the example calculations often lead you in the right direction.
One of the things I didn't know about was how dates, times and timestamps were treated internally. More importantly, how this impacted what I wanted to do with date/time calculations and integrating with external systems. Later down the road, I learned about all the other things I needed to know when considering time around the globe. Understanding UTC, how it impacts my solution, and running scripts on the server in a different time zone vs running them within the local client and how this might impact things based on times or dates.
This week's video and technique file will provide you with all kinds of understanding. The fundamentals and powerful custom functions which should provide you with a ton of date/time confidence for handlings most any date/time based task within FileMaker.
Comments
DateDifference
As always thanks for the interesting and thought provoking videos.
I believe I started with Winfied's 2006 custom function, but discovered issues relating to leap years/centuaries. I recall there was a long thread on one of the discussion lists out of which came the modified version found at https://www.briandunning.com/cf/536 This includes a number of output formats and is what I have used since about 2008 for both the difference between dates and Age. It also works for Age at a specific date rather than today (for example age at the start of the academic year)
Paul Jansen