MOVE / MOVEL of a Job-Date Reserved Word

Supported RPG Features

The job-date reserved words are valid as the Factor 2 of a MOVE or MOVEL. They are numeric reserved words, not declared fields: their digits are the job date ordered by the control-spec DATEDIT keyword (*MDY when DATEDIT is omitted). UDATE carries a two-digit year (6 digits), *DATE a four-digit one (8 digits); *YEAR/UYEAR, *MONTH/UMONTH, and *DAY/UDAY carry a single component each.

Moved into a character result, the word supplies exactly those digits. Moved into a date result, *DATE and UDATE supply the job date itself - the same DATEDIT ordering that produced the digits is what reads them back, so the date value is the same under any DATEDIT setting. A two-digit year resolves in the 1940 - 2039 window. The component words carry only one field and cannot fill a date result.

                                                   (job date 2026-07-28)
C                   MOVE      *DATE          c8    (DATEDIT *MDY → '07282026')
C                   MOVEL     UDATE          c6    (DATEDIT *MDY → '072826')
C                   MOVE      *DATE          c8    (DATEDIT *YMD → '20260728')
C                   MOVE      *YEAR          c4    ('2026')
C                   MOVE      *MONTH         c2    ('07')
C                   MOVEL     *DATE          dIso  (date 2026-07-28)
C                   MOVEL     UDATE          dIso  (date 2026-07-28)

A date, character, or numeric source into a date result

A date, time, or timestamp source of the same type is stored straight across, with Factor 1 blank. The value is the same instant - only the declared DATFMT/TIMFMT rendering differs - so the formats need not match:

                                            (d1 is DATFMT(*ISO), d2 is DATFMT(*USA))
C                   MOVE      d1             d2    (d2 renders 07/28/2026)

A character or numeric source converts under a Factor 1 format, which names the source's layout rather than the result's. MOVE reads the rightmost characters of the source and MOVEL the leftmost, so a source wider than the format reaches the same date from either end:

                                            (cr = 'XX07/28/26', cl = '07/28/26XX')
C     *ISO          MOVE      c10            d1    ('2026-07-28' → 2026-07-28)
C     *MDY          MOVE      n6             d1    (numeric 72826 → 2026-07-28)
C     *MDY          MOVE      cr             d1    (rightmost 8   → 2026-07-28)
C     *MDY          MOVEL     cl             d1    (leftmost 8    → 2026-07-28)

A character source must carry the format's separated form, so *MDY needs eight characters (07/28/26) rather than six - a shorter field is rejected outright, and rpgc's conversion refuses it rather than inventing a date. A numeric source has no separators and converts from its digits, so *MDY takes six.