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I would like to display a date field as a label. The data is from a shapefile. The field in question is a date field.

When I use the date field for the label, it displays in the yyyy/mm/dd format. I would like to get it to the dd/mm/yyyy format.

Is this possible. I know in MapInfo I would use the FormatDate function, I wondered whether something similar existed in QGIS.

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Update: Expressions now support date formatting, for example

format_date('2012-05-15','dd.MM.yyyy') → '15.05.2012'

Currently, there is work going on related to "expression based labeling": http://hub.qgis.org/issues/3488.

For now, you can use Field Calculator to convert your datetime string to a different format, e.g. YYYY/MM/DD to DD.MM.YYYY like this:

substr(date,8,2)||'.'||substr(date,5,2)||'.'||substr(date,0,4)

Substring syntax is:

substr(string,startpos,length)
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If you can open the shape.dbf file in your favorite spreadsheet editor:

  • Create a new column, call it temp_date.
  • Copy and pate the old date data to temp_date
  • Split that column using text to data feature by character \ or whichever happens to be your date splitter
  • Reorganize the columns in the order you want
  • Create a new column new_date
  • In new_date use the following formula =A1 & "/" & B1 & "/" & C1. Of course you need to use the proper fields and not the ones I mentioned.

Of course there could be a default way for QGis to handle date formats, but I haven't seen it. Perhaps, play around wit the field calculator if that helps at all

I'm sure there is an option to do it using the qgis python console, I don't suspect this will be a big deal either using the time /time date modules or just a generic str.replace or reg expression. I'm not verse with the api so I can't help there

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    It is not a good idea to edit dbf outside of a GIS program because the ObjectID field will not carry over into excel. forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=93&f=987&t=302104 – artwork21 Aug 26 '11 at 14:59
  • @artwork21 - Thanks, I will delete my answer shortly. – dassouki Aug 26 '11 at 16:06
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    The thread referenced by @artwork21 documents a fundamental user error: when you sort the dbf, you destroy the connection between it and the features. (OID is a complete red herring; it's not used in the shapefile structure.) Provided you don't insert rows, delete rows, or reorder rows when editing the .dbf file, you'll be ok. Consider re-opening your reply in light of this. – whuber Aug 26 '11 at 21:47

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