Searching - Dates or Times FieldNametype=date FieldNametype=time

Uses dates or times as part of a search.

WebDNA normally compares all fields in a database as though they were text, even if they look like dates to you. Unless you tell it to compare a field as a date (or as a time or a number), all comparisons are alphabetical.

If your database has a date field (SoldDate, for instance) that you wish to sort in date-order, you would put something like the following in the search criteria:

http://Results.tpl?command=search&geSoldDatedata=2/17/96&SoldDatetype=date

Alternately, if your database has a time field (SoldTime, for instance) that you wish to sort in time-order, you would put something like the following in the search criteria:

http://Results.tpl?command=search&geSoldTimedata=10:15:00&SoldTimetype=time

Why is this important? Imagine that WebDNA is comparing two fields that happen to contain dates in them:

Compare "2/12/1997" to "12/9/1997" -- when compared alphabetically, WebDNA looks at the first letter in both fields and sees "2" and "1", respectively. In this case, it would (wrongly) assume that "2" is greater than "1" (which in an alphabetical sense is true), and would sort "12/9/1997" after "2/12/1997". This is probably not what you meant.

When compared as dates, the two numbers would sort correctly.

WebDNA accepts dates that look like "month/day/year", as in "4/19/97" and "4/19/1997". It uses the global date format preference to decide what order the month/day/year fields are stored (so you can use 1997/05/27 as long as you set the date preference to display dates in that format). All sorting, summaries, and comparisons work correctly when you tell WebDNA which fields are to be treated as dates.