You can specify a date (d) format template for a field or column with a date data type. The syntax of a date template is:

The d indicates this is a date template, and the template parameter indicates exactly how a specific date is displayed or entered. You must delimit the template with single (') or double (") quotation marks; single quotes are recommended for consistency with requirements for quoting string constants.

The date is left‑justified by default. You can right justify it by specifying the optional plus (+) sign.

When input masking is off, the template can be a string of characters specifying either the absolute date and time format or specifying a time interval format, for either a display‑only or data entry field.