VFP5 and VFP6 seem to both have trouble appending dates from a sdf file when the dates are mm/dd/yy or yy/dd/mm. We could perhaps get our vendors to change their date formats, or append dates into character fields and then write code to play with them.

I appended a file of 4 dates into a table in 2.6, 5, and 6, with varying settings (see comments and original dates in right column). Neither VFP version performs satisfactorily, although 6 is somewhat less off the wall than 5. I got the same results appending into a vfp table.

Record# DT COMMENTS
1 / / fox 5 with defaults
2 01/02/1999 01/02/99
3 02/03/0001 01/02/03
4 01/02/0099 99/01/02
5 01/02/0003 03/01/02
6 / / fox 5 set cent 19 roll 50
7 01/02/1999 01/02/99
8 02/03/0001 01/02/03
9 01/02/0099 99/01/02
10 01/02/0003 03/01/02
11 / / fox 5 set date ymd
12 / / 01/02/99
13 02/03/0001 01/02/03
14 01/02/0099 99/01/02
15 01/02/0003 03/01/02
16 / / fox 6 defaults
17 01/02/0099 01/02/99
18 01/02/0003 01/02/03
19 / / 99/01/02
20 03/01/0002 03/01/02
21 / / fox 6 set cent 19 roll 50
22 01/02/0099 01/02/99
23 01/02/0003 01/02/03
24 / / 99/01/02
25 03/01/0002 03/01/02
26 / / set date ymd
27 01/02/0099 01/02/99
28 01/02/0003 01/02/03
29 01/02/1999 99/01/02
30 03/01/0002 03/01/02
31 / / foxpro 2.6 with y2kfox
32 01/02/1999 01/02/99
33 01/02/2003 01/02/03
34 / / 99/01/02
35 03/01/2002 03/01/02
36 / / set date ymd
37 / / 01/02/99
38 02/03/2001 01/02/03
39 01/02/1999 99/01/02
40 01/02/2003 03/01/02

Dates in format yyyymmdd worked fine.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about how to handle this behavior short of brute force coding?

Thanks,
--Dave