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Adding and viewing data
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ILEMAKER PRO HELP 76
Notes
• You can enter era abbreviations in lower- or upper-case, and as full width or half width
characters. Full width numbers (but not the date separators) are converted to half width
when you exit the field in Browse or Find modes.
• An era abbreviation letter followed by a “0” is interpreted as the year prior to the first year of
that era. For example, “M0” = 1867, “T0” = 1911, and so on. A “0” year entered without an
era abbreviation but with the “+” date separator is converted to 1988, the year prior to the
first year of the current era, Heisei.
Conversion of dates with two-digit years
FileMaker Pro permits you to enter dates with two-digit years, such as “12/1/99” and “3/2/09.”
However, these dates are ambiguous because they do not specify the century; entering “5/6/53”
could be in the year 1953, 2053, or the 53rd year in any other century.
Important When you enter dates with two-digit years into a date field, FileMaker Pro converts them
to four-digit years using the two-digit year conversion method described below. This conversion
method may not convert the two-digit year dates that you enter into the century that you expect,
which may result in inaccurate date entries.
You should familiarize yourself with this conversion method and, for date fields where inaccurate
date conversions are a possibility, take the following precautions to improve the accuracy of entered
dates:
• Always enter dates with four-digit years.
• Use the FileMaker Pro field validation option that requires entering four-digit year dates. An
error message will appear when an attempted date entry contains a two-digit year. For more
information, see
Defining field validation.
• On your layouts, always format date fields to display four-digit years. For more information,
see
Specifying formats for date fields.
Note This conversion method is used for all forms of two-digit year date entry into FileMaker Pro,
not just data entry into fields. For example, date conversion occurs during import of two-digit year
dates into FileMaker
Pro. For a list of situations where the conversion method is used, see the
conversion information below.
Two-digit year date conversion method
FileMaker Pro converts two-digit year dates into four-digit year dates based on the year in which the
date is entered, always assuming that the four-digit year date should be in either the next 30 years,
or the preceding 70 years. The following table shows how two-digit year dates entered in three
different years will convert to four-digit years.
Two-digit year
In 2013,
converts to
In 2015,
converts to
In 2030,
converts to
02 2002 2002 2002
15 2015 2015 2015
42 2042 2042 2042
43 2043 2043 2043
44 1944 2044 2044