Partial date handling

Partial date handling is enabled by default. To disable it, add partialdates=no in the Settings file.

 

To specify that a particular date question can accept partial dates, the study designer must check the 'Allow partial dates' check box for that question in the Question Definition window. Note that this check box is only displayed when the partial date feature is enabled.

A partial date value may have its day missing, or it may have its day and month missing. For a date question, the partial date formats allowed are:

• mm/yyyy or m/yyyy

• yyyy/mm or yyyy/m

• yyyy

Note: The formats dd/mm, mm/dd, dd/yyyy and yyyy/dd are not supported. A time (hh:mm or hh:mm:ss) may not be included with a partial date.

The following table shows how the user’s input in Data Entry will be interpreted for a date question where a partial date is allowed. Ambiguous input, shown as invalid, will be rejected.

Question format	User's input	Interpretation	Displayed to user as
dd/mm/yyyy	1/3/05	Full date	01/03/2005
dd/mm/yyyy	3/05	month year	03/2005
dd/mm/yyyy	5	year	2005
mm/dd/yyyy	1/3/05	Full date	01/03/2005
mm/dd/yyyy	3/05	month year	03/2005
mm/dd/yyyy	5	year	2005
yyyy/mm/dd	1/3/05	Full date	01/03/2005
yyyy/mm/dd	3/05	year month	2003/05
yyyy/mm/dd	5	year	2005
mm/yyyy	1/3/05	invalid	-
mm/yyyy	3/05	month year	03/2005
mm/yyyy	5	year	2005
yyyy/mm	1/3/05	invalid	-
yyyy/mm	3/05	year month	2003/05
yyyy/mm	5	year	2005
yyyy	1/3/05	invalid	-
yyyy	3/05	invalid	-
yyyy	5	year	2005

A lab test question may have a date associated with it which is used when checking Normal Range values that have "Effective dates" specified. A lab test date may not be a partial date. If a lab test date is a partial date, the question will not be validated against any Normal Range or CTC grade values that have effective dates, i.e. a partial lab test date will be treated as a missing lab test date.

A Subject DOB which is a partial date will also be treated as a missing Subject DOB. This only affects the validation of lab test questions against any Normal Range or CTC grade values that have associated age ranges.

All existing Arezzo date functions and comparisons work with both full and partial dates (and combinations of full and partial dates. There are also some new Arezzo functions which test for a partial date and convert a partial date to a full date. More information...