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Match Transformation: Convert Date to String

The Convert Date to String transformation converts identifiers with a Date data type into String values for the purpose of clustering values when matching.

This works in the same way as the main Convert Date to String processor. This help page gives an example of using the transformation when clustering.

Note that Convert Date to String cannot be used within Comparisons.

Use

Use the Convert Date to String transformation if you require a String representation of a date value, for example so that you can trim the value down to its day, month or year part.

The most common use of this is when clustering date values, using a part of the date only (such as the year). The date is first converted to a String format, and then the relevant two or four characters that represent the year are selected using a Last N Characters transformation.

Options

Option	Type	Purpose	Default Value
Date format String	Entry of a date format	The format of the date used to create the new String value	dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss (See Note below)
Time zone	Time Zone	The time zone to use when reading the date/time value and converting it to a string	Director Time Zone

Note: The date format expressed must conform to the standard Java 1.5.0 or Java 1.6.0 SimpleDateFormat API. To understand how to specify a format for the correct output of dates, see the online Java documentation here.

Example

In this example, the Convert Date to String is used to convert a DATE_OF_BIRTH attribute to a String type, with a view to extracting the year part using a Last n Characters transformation, and using the year value in a cluster.

Example configuration

Date format String: dd/MM/yyyy

Example transformations

The following table illustrates some examples of conversions using the above configuration:

Value	Transformed value
29-Nov-1976 00:00:00	29/11/1976
03-Apr-1949 00:00:00	03/04/1949
11-Jan-1962 00:00:00	11/01/1962