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Harmonizing the date format

Talend Cloud Data Preparation supports many different date formats, which you can harmonize to improve your data.

You can see in the SubDate column that even if your data respects the semantic type set as date, they do not follow only one date format. As a consequence, European and American standards, - and / coexist.

In the column, European and American date coexist.

You are going to harmonize the SubDate column and set only one date format for all your data. To do so:

Procedure

  1. Click the header of the SubDate column to select its content.
    The SubDate column is selected.
  2. In the statistics box on the bottom right, click Pattern.
    In the statistics box, the Pattern feature is selected.

    This tab gives you a better view of the different date formats currently used. Some dates follow the European standard, while other follow the American format. In any case, you can see that the dd-MMM-yyyy format is the most commonly used.

  3. To standardize the date format, click Change Date Format... in the functions list.
    In the Table function list, the function Change date format is selected.

    A menu opens, where you can specify the current date formats, and the desired one.

  4. In the Current format drop-down list, leave I don't know, best guess selected.
  5. In the New format drop-down list, select Other.
  6. In the Your format field, type dd-MMM-yyyy.
    The Change date format function is being configured.

    The dd-MMM-yyyy format is the most suited since it is the one that already had the most occurrences.

Results

The SubDate column now follows only one date format, which make it easier to read. You can also notice that the recipe highlights your last action and it is even possible to modify the date format again, directly from the recipe.
The recipe expands the last action and its configuration.

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