Understanding Raw and Decimal Dates

You can work with dates in either raw or decimal formats.

The raw date format expresses a date in years, months, and days, as in December 15, 2003. The format of a date can change (for example, when you perform certain date math, you use the format yyyy/mm/dd); regardless, any date expressed in terms of years, months, and days is a raw date.

The decimal date format represents a raw date in years-only format. The months and days are converted to partial years. For example, July 1, 2002, can be expressed as 2002.5000. You might convert dates to a decimal format to simplify date subtraction and thus determine the length of time between two dates.

Unless you specifically convert a date to the decimal format using the date conversion option, you can assume that the dates you deal with are raw dates.