This statement declares date variables. A new variable can be described using one of the two following formats.

• VariableName
• VariableName (date format)

VariableName is the name of the new variable. The date format can be any of the following predefined constants:

If the date format is not defined, Equinox assigns the ddmmyy format by default.

Many date variables can be declared using one date statement, by adding further variable descriptions; variable descriptions are separated by a comma.

N.B. date formats usually apply to the display, however if you change the date format of a variable to YYYYMMDD for example, you will need to assign a value to that variable as if it were a string not a date variable eg :

Date mydate(yyyymmdd)
mydate="2014-01-01"

normally for a date variable you would use single quotes.

This example shows various different ways to declare a date variable.

Date birthday, christmas | two variables
Date international(yymmdd), ukdate(ddmmmyy)
christmas = Dmy(25, 12, Today)