5. Date / Time

As it says 'on the tin', a date / time data type is used to store any data that is related to date or time.

The tricky thing about date / time is that there are so many ways of showing it. And some countries have a different way of representing a date. For example

9/4/94 in the USA means 4th Sept 94

9/4/94 in the UK means 9th April 94

By using a date /time data type, you can choose the format for how you want your data to be automatically displayed.

For example: 14/05/08, 14 May 2008, 14th May 2008 etc.

Another reason to use a date /time data type is that it can provide some basic validation on the data being entered.

For example, you would not be able to enter the date 31/02/2008 - it would automatically be rejected or return an error message.

Many software application avoid the complexity of date formatting by offereing a pop-up date picker like the one shown above that is part of an accounting package.