Columnal Documentation: Table of Contents

Literals

dateym{..} literaldate{..} literaltime{..} literaldatetime{..} literaldatetimezoned{..} literaltype{..} literal
dateym{...}

Creates a year-month value -- this is a date without a day of the month. You can use month numbers or English month names.

ExamplesClick an example to insert it
dateym{April 2003}dateym from ym(2003{year}, 4{month})
dateym{11/2010}dateym from ym(2010{year}, 11{month})
dateym{Sep 1921}dateym from ym(1921{year}, 9{month})
date{...}

Creates a date value. The format is quite flexible, the main issue is avoid ambiguous dates. Dates like 4/8/2000 could be interpreted as 4th August or 8th April. This issue can be avoided in several ways: you can use the ISO format (e.g. date{2010-04-05} is 5th April), or you can use an (English) month name, e.g. date{5 April 2010}

ExamplesClick an example to insert it
date{10 April 2003}date from ymd(2003{year}, 4{month}, 10{day})
date{2010-11-28}date from ymd(2010{year}, 11{month}, 28{day})
date{Sep 3 1921}date from ymd(1921{year}, 9{month}, 3{day})
time{...}

Creates a time value, representing a time of day. You can use the 24-hour clock or AM/PM. Fractional seconds are allowed.

ExamplesClick an example to insert it
time{08:57}time from hms(8{hour}, 57{minute}, 0{s})
time{9:12:03 PM}time from hms(21{hour}, 12{minute}, 3{s})
time{23:59:59.999999}time from hms(23{hour}, 59{minute}, 59.999999{s})
datetime{...}

Creates a date-time value, with a date and time of day on that date.

The date part of the format is quite flexible, the main issue is avoid ambiguous dates. Dates like 4/8/2000 could be interpreted as 4th August or 8th April. This issue can be avoided in several ways: you can use the ISO format (e.g. datetime{2010-04-05 12:34} is 5th April), or you can use a month name, e.g. date{5 April 2010 4:56}

For the time part, you can use the 24-hour clock or AM/PM. Fractional seconds are allowed.

ExamplesClick an example to insert it
datetime{10 April 2003 08:57}datetime from dt(date from ymd(2003{year}, 4{month}, 10{day}), time from hms(8{hour}, 57{minute}, 0{s}))
datetime{2010-11-28 9:12:03 PM}datetime from dt(date from ymd(2010{year}, 11{month}, 28{day}), time from hms(21{hour}, 12{minute}, 3{s}))
datetime{Sep 3 1921 23:59:59.999999}datetime from dt(date from ymd(1921{year}, 9{month}, 3{day}), time from hms(23{hour}, 59{minute}, 59.999999{s}))
datetimezoned{...}

Creates a zoned date-time value, with a date and time of day on that date, and a time zone.

The date part of the format is quite flexible, the main issue is avoid ambiguous dates. Dates like 4/8/2000 could be interpreted as 4th August or 8th April. This issue can be avoided in several ways: you can use the ISO format (e.g. datetime{2010-04-05 12:34} is 5th April), or you can use a month name, e.g. date{5 April 2010 4:56}

For the time part, you can use the 24-hour clock or AM/PM. Fractional seconds are allowed.

Time zones can be specified in two ways. The simplest is as an offset from UTC, e.g. +10:00 is ten hours ahead of UTC, -01:30 is one and a half hours behind. The alternative is to use a continent/city format, e.g. Europe/London. The city format will use the UTC offset that the official local time used on the given date, so datetimezoned{2019-01-14 03:40 Europe/London} is 03:40 UTC as London operates on UTC in the winter, but datetimezoned{2019-05-14 03:40 Europe/London} is 04:40 UTC because London is one hour ahead during the summer.

ExamplesClick an example to insert it
datetimezoned{10 April 2003 08:57+00:00}datetimezoned from dtz(date from ymd(2003{year}, 4{month}, 10{day}), time from hms(8{hour}, 57{minute}, 0{s}), "+00:00")
datetimezoned{2010-11-28 9:12:03 PM Asia/Jakarta}datetimezoned from dtz(date from ymd(2010{year}, 11{month}, 28{day}), time from hms(21{hour}, 12{minute}, 3{s}), "Asia/Jakarta")
datetimezoned{Sep 3 1921 23:59:59.999999 Africa/Khartoum}datetimezoned from dtz(date from ymd(1921{year}, 9{month}, 3{day}), time from hms(23{hour}, 59{minute}, 59.999999{s}), "Africa/Khartoum")
type{...}

Creates a type value. Type values are used for functions like from text to(..), and as tsype(..), to specify a destination type.

ExamplesClick an example to insert it
from text to(type{Boolean}, "true")true
from text to(type{Number{minute}}, "93")93{minute}
from text to(type{@apply Optional(Date)}, "None")Optional\None