>>>I think your approach is probably better. Except a little more characters to type when making changes <g>. Thank you.
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>>You can always pass the var to a function and check it there - you could set it to an empty date if it's null or check it for a valid date within a range if it's not null, etc....
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>Good suggestion. I can add more "features" to the function that checks for empty or null date. Thank you

Except that I'd still go for the one-liner expression in a SQL statement. Today's machines may be fast enough for that, but still the overhead of calling a function for each record may be too much - and may get of your nerves if it happens while debugger is on.