Unique month

[Sundog]

Having been in IT ... - I adopted the ddMmmYYYY format for dates a long time ago. ...it facilitates sorting for ascending descending...

BobH, I prefer the YYYYMMDD format myself, as it sorts in true ascending or descending sequence. Doesn't your format end up with all "1st day of the month" dates sorted together for example, no matter what the month or year? Or am I missing something obvious?

E.g., YYYYMMDD descending:

• 20101018

• 20090922

• 19900101

vs. ddMmmYYYY ?

• 01Jan1990

• 18Oct2010

• 22Sep2009

[HansV]

That depends on how the dates are stored.

If they are text values, one should use YYYYMMDD.

Programs such as Excel and Access, however, store dates as numbers, and the format is merely a way to display them. Dates will be sorted correctly regardless of the display format.

[Sundog]

I understand. I use YYYYMMDD as a part of file names as an easy version control method, since the "File Date" may change for a particular version as various reviewers weigh in.

[HansV]

Yes, in that case YYYYMMDD is the format to use - file names are sorted as text, so DDMMMYYYY wouldn't be sorted correctly, but YYYYMMDD will.

[BobH]

Yikes! Yes, I do put the year first. Senior moments (aka brain fahrts) are awful!