Dates and times may be sent to the database in one of the following ways:
Using any interface, as a string
Using ODBC, as a TIMESTAMP structure
Using Embedded SQL, as a SQLDATETIME structure
When a time is sent to the database as a string (for the TIME data type) or as part of a string (for TIMESTAMP or DATE data types), the hours, minutes, and seconds must be separated by colons in the format hh:mm:ss:sss, but can appear anywhere in the string. As an option, a period can separate the seconds from fractions of a second, as in hh:mm:ss.sss. The following are valid and unambiguous strings for specifying times:
21:35 -- 24 hour clock if no am or pm specified
10:00pm -- pm specified, so interpreted as 12 hour clock
10:00 -- 10:00am in the absence of pm
10:23:32.234 -- seconds and fractions of a
second included
When a date is sent to the database as a string, conversion to a date is automatic. The string can be supplied in one of two ways:
As a string of format yyyy/mm/dd or yyyy-mm-dd, which is interpreted unambiguously by the database
As a string interpreted according to the DATE_ORDER database option
Date format strings must not contain any multibyte characters. Only single-byte characters are allowed in a date/time/datetime format string, even when the collation order of the database is a multibyte collation order like 932JPN.
