VBScript in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

DateSerial Function

Syntax

DateSerial(year, month, day)

year

Use: Required

Data Type: Integer

Number between 0 and 9999, inclusive.

month

Use: Required

Data Type: Integer

Any numeric expression to express the month between 1 and 12.

day

Use: Required

Data Type: Integer

Any numeric expression to express the day between 1 and 31.

Return Value

A Date.

Description

Returns a Date from the three date components (year, month, and day). For the function to succeed, all three components must be present and all must be numeric values.

Rules at a Glance

• If the value of a particular element exceeds its normal limits, DateSerial adjusts the date accordingly. For example, if you tried DateSerial (96,2,31)—February 31, 1996—DateSerial returns March 2, 1996.

• You can specify expressions or formulas that evaluate to individual date components as parameters to DateSerial. For example, DateSerial (98,10+9,23) returns 23 March 1999. This makes it easier to use DateSerial to form dates whose individual elements are unknown at design time or that are created on the fly as a result of user input.

Example

Dim iYear, iMonth, iday

iYear = 1987
iMonth = 3 + 11
iday = 16

MsgBox DateSerial(iYear, iMonth, iday)

Programming Tips and Gotchas

• If any of the parameters exceed the range of the Integer data type (-32,768 to 32,767), an error (runtime error 6, “Overflow”) is generated.

• The Microsoft documentation for this function incorrectly states, “For the year argument, values between 0 and 99, inclusive, are interpreted as the years ...