A complete absolute date includes day, month, year, and time according to a 24‑hour clock. The default display format for a date data type is c25, which displays absolute dates in a field 25 characters wide, in the format:

If the date to be displayed does not include the time of day, you can specify a correspondingly smaller display width for the field.

By using a date template such as d'SUN Feb 3 1901' to specify the display format, you can display dates and times in a wide variety of formats. For more information, see Date and Time Templates (see page Date and Time Templates).