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Language: Enterprise
Expertise: Intermediate

Jul 27, 2000

Unix systems keep dates in a single number format that represents the number of seconds past January 1, 1970. January 1, 1970 is considered the EPOC and is the date that Unix systems base their dates. So for example, the date 902243157 translates to the human readable Aug-04-1998 15:05:57.000.

Since this date format is not easily readable, and some database vendors don't support it, the developer is required to reformat the date. Fortunately, this can be easily done in very similar manners using T-SQL on SQL Server, VBScript, or Visual Basic. Use the DateAdd function to perform the Translation:

 /*T-SQL*/ 
Declare @ld_Date  Date
Set @ld_Date = DateAdd(SECOND,Date, '01/01/1970')

 'Visual Basic/VBScript
Dim dateFormat
DateFormat = DateAdd("s",Date, "01/01/1970")