Date/Time Attributes panel
This panel is used to define a field that contains date or time values (or both). The panel lists the formatting for the date and time field, data create and modify attributes, and data scrambling attributes. You can define the format in which the data and time data is stored, if necessary override the data type for the field, and modify the format used to display the date and time. You can also specify data create and field scrambling options.
Panel and field definitions
FM/IMS displays these fields on the Date/Time Attributes panel:
- Internal attributes
- Used to define how the date and time value is stored in the field.
- Format
- Specifies the format in which a date and time value is stored in the field.
The format value can be a string containing picture characters supported by the
Language Environment date and time callable services. For example if an 8 byte,
external decimal field is used to store a date in the form of a 4 digit year
value followed by a 2 digit month value followed by a 2 digit day value you
would specify the format string as:
- YYYYMMDD
- You can also enter one of the following formats supported by File Manager:
- CENTSECS
- Time of day in hundredths of seconds
- CBLDATE
- COBOL date (the number of days since 31 December 1600)
- CYYDDD
- Julian date with C as the century indicator (0 = 1900s, 1 = 2000s)
- LILDATE
- Lilian date (the number of days since 14 October 1582)
- LILTIME
- Date and time stored as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 14 October 1582.
- MICSECS
- Time of day in millionths of seconds.
- MILLSECS
- Time of day in thousandths of seconds.
- STCK
- Date and time stored as a TOD clock value.
- STCKE
- Date and time stored as an extended TOD clock value.
- Type
- Specifies a data type that overrides the data type defined in the field attributes. This is used when the field data type is not appropriate for the processing of the date and time value. For example if an alphanumeric field is used to store microsecond time values BI (binary) can be entered in the Type field to ensure File Manager performs valid processing of the time values.
- Output attributes
- Used to define how the date and time value is displayed.
- Format
- Specifies the format used to display the date and time values for this field.
You enter the format as a string containing picture characters supported by the
Language Environment date and time callable services. For example to display a
date value as a string showing a 3 character day-of-week, a 3 character month,
2 digits for the day of the month, and 4 digits for the year you could specify
the format string
When FM/IMS displays a date and time field in formatted mode, the output width for the field is set to the length of the specified output format.Www Mmm DD, YYYY
- Create/Modify Attributes
- These define the field-specific attributes used by the data create and
data copy functions when creating test data for records containing this field.
- Base Date
- Specifies a date value to be used when creating new data for this field.
You enter a date value in the output format defined for this field. You can
enter an = to indicate that the current date is to be used. When you press Enter
this value is retrieved and replaces the = in the field. The value retrieved is
a constant, so that if a data create function is run later, the same value will
always be used to populate the field.
You can enter * to indicate that the date at the time the data is created should be used to populate the field. Specifying * indicates a variable value for the field when a data create function is run, that value is the date on which the create function is executed.
- Day Adjustment
- Specifies a value to increment or decrement the day value in the base date.
The value should consist of integers optionally preceded by the plus (+) or
minus (-) character. The plus character indicates the day value should be
incremented. The minus character indicates the day value should be decremented.
If a plus or minus character is not specified a plus is assumed.
The increment or decrement value is applied to the day value stored in the field for the previous record. For example, a value of -1 indicates that each subsequent record should have a date value one day earlier than the date value stored in the previous record.
- Month Adjustment
- Specifies a value to increment or decrement the month value in the base date. The value should
consist of integers optionally preceded by the plus (+) or minus (-) character. The plus character
indicates the month value should be incremented. The minus character indicates the month value
should be decremented. If a plus or minus character is not specified a plus is assumed.
The increment or decrement value is applied to the month value stored in the field for the previous record. For example, a value of +1 indicates that each subsequent record should have a date value one month later than the date value stored in the previous record.
- Year Adjustment
- Specifies a value to increment or decrement the year value in the base date. The
value should consist of integers optionally preceded by the plus (+) or minus (-)
character. The plus character indicates the year value should be incremented. The
minus character indicates the year value should be decremented. If a plus or
minus character is not specified a plus is assumed.
The increment or decrement value is applied to the year value stored in the field for the previous record. For example, a value of -1 indicates that each subsequent record should have a date value one year earlier than the date value stored in the previous record.
- Scrambling Options
- These options control field scrambling used during copy, import, or export functions to
produce test data.
- Random
- If this option is selected File Manager performs random scrambling when copying values into this
date and time field. For random scrambling the same input value will produce
different output values on subsequent invocations. If this option is not selected
and range Start and End values are specified File Manager performs
repeatable scrambling for this date and time field. Repeatable scrambling means
the same input value will produce the same output value on subsequent invocations.
For both random and repeatable scrambling, the Start and End values define the range of acceptable date and time values that File Manager can store in this field.
- Start
- Specifies a date and time value that is the start of a range of scrambled values that can be stored in this field when copying data into this data set. You enter the date and time value in the output format defined for this field.
- End
- Specifies a date and time value that is the end of a range of scrambled values that can be stored in this field when copying data into this data set. You enter the date and time value in the output format defined for this field.