eeCreationDate (creationdate)

In which input files is this field used?

In entries of DBI files

What should the field look like?

In the usual files: [creationdate:xxx]
In the file w.dbi: fixed position (for story-items)

What does the field contain?

The creation date of a story, or a close estimate of that.

This field is usually only mentioned in story-items (i.e. entries in DBI files that are also meant to be THE story data).
The contents is then used for filling the DBS creation date field.

Which checks are done?

The field always has the (international standard) format "yyyy-mm-dd".
If the day is unknown, the field has no "-dd" ("yyyy-mm"). If the month is unknown too, the date is simply a 4-digit year.

If only the quarter of the year is known, the date format is "yyyy-Qx" where x is 1, 2, 3, or 4. For instance "1998-Q3" = 3rd quarter of 1998.

A date field can be followed by a '?'.

If a date contains a letter 'y', 'm', or 'd', the rest of the date, starting with this letter, is ignored. This allows dates like "1978-mm-dd" and "1978-03-dd". (This feature was added to make the input more readable. Use it with care!)

Note that the full 4-digit year is mentioned in the date.

The checking on real dates is not done completely, for instance February 29th is allowed in all years.

Which CSV field(s) use this field?

This page was generated on 2007-06-20 by DVEGEN 4.5a © Harry Fluks 2003.
For more information contact Harry Fluks (hfl at inducks.org - replace the at)