Date Format Strings and FRM-40209 (Doc ID 16463.1)

Last updated on DECEMBER 08, 2023

Applies to:

Goal

 If a date field is defined without a format mask, and the user enters an invalid date at runtime, then Forms responds with some useful
messages to give the user a clue as to what they did incorrectly. For example:
FRM-50003: Year must be 00-99 or 1000-4712.
FRM-50004: Day must be between 1 and last of month.
FRM-50011: Not a valid month name.

The problem comes, however, if you define a format string to the field, for example apply the format mask DDMONYYYY to a 9 char date field in order to
allow for the 21st century, without changing the physical field size or layout.  In this situation if an invalid date is entered then the user will receive the
rather unhelpful, catch all, message of FRM-40209: Field must be of form <format string>. This message gives the user no information about what they
really did wrong. This article shows you how to code your error handling so as to obtain a more useful error message for the user in this situation.

Solution