Ed,

When you see cDate("01012001"), you see Jan 1st, 2001, but what VB sees is "the day number one million twelve thousands and one (1,012,001)".

? cDate("1")   ' cDate(1) gives the same answer
12/31/1899     ' December 31st, 1899 seems to be days one according to VB

? cDate("2")
01/01/1900

? cDate("3")
01/02/1900

...

? cDate("01011999")
10/3/4670

? cDate("01012000")
10/4/4670

? cDate("01012001")
10/5/4670

>I have users that enter dates such as "01012001" in a date field,
>the validate method calls cDate(), which I would expect to return 01/01/2001,
>but check it out:
>
>? cDate("01012001")
>10/5/4670
>
>? cDate("010101")
>8/27/1927 ' Didn't see this one coming
>
>Star trek dates! Obviously if the dashes or slashes are in the date, it works correctly. Rather than writing my own routine to insert them, does anyone know of a quick date conversion that works correctly (or even explain the magic under the hood here?). There doesn't seem to be behind the scenes information on how VB is coming up with the results...
>
>TIA,
>Ed VanDuyne