Date format doesn't show slash

[dkump]

I have my Windows 11 regional settings set to show the short date as "M/d/yyyy". This shows the modified date as "4/10/2025" correctly in XYplorer. If I change my regional settings to "ddd M/d/yyyy", XYplorer shows "Thu 4 10 2025". The slashes are missing. Windows shows it correctly with the slash. Seems like a bug in XYplorer. Is there a workaround? I can't find a way to set the format within XYplorer settings instead of using the Windows regional settings. Any ideas? Thanks.

[jupe]

You can just right click the Mod/Created/Acc Date columns header (avail in Details view) to modify the date format, although if you want to use "ddd M/d/yyyy" specifically instead of one of the default options available, you will need to manually edit the config file, I can supply instructions on how if you want.

[dkump]

Thanks for the reply. I would like to have the instructions for the config file. I see date settings in appdata\roaming\xyplorer\xyplorer.ini, but probably best if you confirm the proper change. By the way, I also noticed if my region settings are "ddd M/d/yyyy" and I pick "mm'dd'yyyy" when right clicking the modified date column heading in XYplorer, it still omits the slashes. I have doubts if this will work, but it's worth a try.

[jupe]

Yes there may be a bug regarding custom date format in OS regional settings, the dev will look at that, but using default regional settings this will work. What region are you in and OS ver, in case the dev needs to know. Anyway open this menu item

Tools | Open Configuration File

Then look for this section in the conf file that opens,

[ListDateFormats]

and then modify one of the values underneath, eg

3="ddd M/d/yyyy"

then save the file and File | Restart Without Saving in XYplorer.

[dkump]

I did as you suggested. As expected, the slashes (/) were missing even though the config file had "ddd M/d/yyyy". If my regional settings are "ddd M/d/yyyy", XYplorer won't display a dash in the date regardless of which date format I set in XYplorer. Definitely a bug in my view. I'm running Windows 11 24H2 and my regional settings are English (United States).

[admin]

Can't reproduce (Win8.1 and Win11).

What do you get if you run this script through the XY address bar: echo formatdate(, "ddd M/d/yyyy");

[jupe]

Did you restart OS since changing the date?

[dkump]

If if set region setting for short date to: ddd M/d/yyyy
When I run: echo formatdate(, "ddd M/d/yyyy");
I get: Fri 4 11 2025
I only need to restart XYplorer, but I've also restarted File Explorer and rebooted. Same results.
Seems like a bug to me.

[admin]

Out of ideas.

[dkump]

I'm also out of ideas. How do I get this on the bug list for a possible fix in the future? Web site and program always points me to this forum.

[admin]

1) Did you play around with similar patterns to narrow it down a bit?

2) Did you already try it with a fresh instance of XY?

[dkump]

It's a little frustrating I need to go to that level of testing, but I did it. Basically, the first delimiter found in the system region short date setting is used for the entire date string in XYplorer. Since I used a space then it became "Sat 4 12 2025". If I used a slash, then it's "Sat/4/12/2025". Dash is "Sat-4-2-2025". You can specify the date format in XYplorer, but it ignores it and uses the delimiter in the system settings. New instance, reboot, or anything like that doesn't matter. Just change system settings and launch XYplorer to reproduce the problem. I'm not sure how far back this goes, but it happens on the latest version.

[admin]

If you find empirical research too frustrating, I suggest you sit around and wait for some magic to happen Playing around with the pattern in echo formatdate(, "ddd M/d/yyyy"); doesn't look so hard to me.

[dkump]

Sorry to offend you. I'm just saying my first post had the exact steps to recreate the problem. You asked that I go farther and modify the ListDateFormats, echo the format date, and reboot. I did the empirical research, reported it, and didn't complain. All information needed to reproduce the problem was provided and those additional tests and potential workarounds ruled out anything other than an XYplorer bug. Then saying you're out of ideas and asking me to keep researching by identifying other patterns and testing each one was extremely frustrating. I still did it, and provided enough information to tell you how the code is written. I didn't sit around and did more than enough magic.

[admin]

I'm also sorry now, because you're right. In fact, you provided all the necessary information in the first post. Now I could reproduce the problem. A strange and AFAIK unknown VBA bug. I was able to work around it for the file list and for SC formatdate. There may be other places where it can still show up, but these are the most important ones I think.

...

UPDATE: Turns out that setting short date to "ddd M/d/yyyy" has other bad side effects as well. Therefore I decided to NOT work around it. It's a weird Windows/VBA bug that will probably disappear with the twinBasic version anyway. In the meantime, don't set short date to "ddd M/d/yyyy" and use XY's native ways to achieve the same (as jupe showed above).

...

UPDATE 2: The twinBasic edition suffers from the same issue, so it is a Windows bug in the date formatting functions.