>How? Wouldn't you need a "^" to make it date format-independent, or else use SET DATE?

I mean for me. In all my frameworks, I work with SET DATE FRENCH. The important part is having an incoming datetime format which is always having the same format, which is the case here from that incoming datetime. Of course, if I would want this function to be universal, no matter what date format is used locally, I would have to do as you say with the use of that character.