Before getting to the date issue, this code has a problem. It's setting ON ERROR conditions without taking into account that a previous ON ERROR handler could already exist. It also doesn't reset the ON ERROR handler at the end. There are better ways to handle this that don't reset ON ERROR, such as TRY/CATCH or even just a message box.

To handle the date:

LOCAL llRetVal

llRetVal = .T.

IF !EMPTY(This.Value) AND EMPTY(CTOD(This.Value))
MESSAGEBOX("Invalid date")
llRetVal = .F.
ENDIF
RETURN llRetVal


>I'm receiving a text field called ExportStartDate from a SQL Server stored procedure. It is defined as a varchar(10), the default value is blank. I'm putting in into a text field on the form and set the Format to D. I put the following code in the Valid hoping to catch if they entered a date incorrectly. My goal is only to have a valid date or an empty value. I thought the CTOD() function would throw an error if the date was invalid, but it simply returns a blank date. While a blank value is valid, it's not valid if they tried to enter a date.
>
>

>LOCAL llerror 
>IF !EMPTY(this.Value)
>	ON ERROR llError=.t.
>	mDate=CTOD(this.Value)
>	ON ERROR DO errsys WITH ERROR(),MESSAGE(1),MESSAGE(),PROGRAM(), LINE(1)
>	IF llerror=.t. 
>		RETURN .f.
>	ENDIF 
>ENDIF 
>

>
>Anyone have an idea how I should approach the validation of the data?
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>Kirk