you can only SUBSTR something that's already a string.. and STRVAL will eat 
a string, number, or date, and return the appropriate results, but it won't 
tell you what it ate in the first place

--

Steven Green
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA

http://www.OasisTradingPost.com

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"Bernie van't Hof"  wrote in message 
news:6021d15c$1@pnews.thedbcommunity.com...

SUBSTR(STRVAL(date1)) would make more sense.

Anyhoo, it is what it is! Might get ugly though.

Either SUBSTR has to have special powers, or date must have multiple
points of view. Thought: I wonder if it is just SUBSTR?

On 9/2/21 7:25 am, Steven Green wrote:
> date1 + "str"     Expecting NUMERIC
> "x" + date1       Expecting ALPHANUMERIC
> ?? "x" + date1    Expecting ALPHANUMERIC
> DOW(dateStr)      Expecting DATE
>
> correct.. you can't mix numbers and strings.. or dates and strings (which 
> are really numbers, too)
>
> it reads left to right, like anything else in english.. the first and last 
> one, the date is first.. the other two, the string is first