Three letter date in System Variable?

Question

In FM2022 - I am currently using the following definition in a System Variable:<$monthname> <$daynum>, <$year> Which displays as: February 28, 2024 What I want is: Feb 28, 2024 Ideas?

Bob_Niland · Accepted Answer

What System Variable? And what are you getting instead?

In FM2020, I just inserted system variable Modification Date (Short) in a Body para,

edited it to:
<$shortmonthname> <$daynum>, <$year>
and got
Feb 29, 2024

Bob_Niland · Answer

re: <$shortmonthname> <$daynum>, <$year>

Because future searches are apt to stumble across this thread, I might add that a very common misperception with date-oriented Variables is due to the Building Blocks elements only being available for System Variables. That BB menu is not present when creating or editing a user Variable.

People do try to type/paste them into user Variable definitions, but they just get rendered as plain text.

The problem is that the System Variables have access to {hidden} operating-system supplied data objects, for which the BBs control the presentation. User Variables are defined only by their Definition dialog field, which is just text, FM special characters, \x or \u codepoints, and any applied Character Format. It might be useful if a Var def could accept expressions, other $Vars, etc., but FM hasn't supported that yet.

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