DATES variable

This variable is being provided as an alternative to the DATE variable since verion 10.08.  It provides more flexibility and has simpler options relative to the DATE variable. 

Example use:
$%DATES::yyyy-MM-dd  HH:mm:ss%$   would return 2013-07-04  12:08:56
$%DATES::MMMMMMMMMM%$   would return  March or April or September or December  depending on the month
$%DATES::MMM%$   would return  Mar or Apr or Sep or Dec  depending on the month
$%DATES::MM%$   would return  03 or 04 or 09 or 12  depending on the month

DATES is based on the java SimpleDateFormat class.  The description below is taken from the java SimpleDateFormat class.

Date and time formats are specified by date and time pattern strings. Within date and time pattern strings, unquoted letters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are interpreted as pattern letters representing the components of a date or time string. Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation. "''" represents a single quote. All other characters are not interpreted; they're simply copied into the output string during formatting or matched against the input string during parsing.

The following pattern letters are defined (all other characters from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z' are reserved):

Letter	Date or Time Component	Presentation	Examples
G	Era designator	Text	AD
y	Year	Year	1996; 96
M	Month in year	Month	July; Jul; 07
w	Week in year	Number	27
W	Week in month	Number	2
D	Day in year	Number	189
d	Day in month	Number	10
F	Day of week in month	Number	2
E	Day in week	Text	Tuesday; Tue
a	Am/pm marker	Text	PM
H	Hour in day (0-23)	Number	0
k	Hour in day (1-24)	Number	24
K	Hour in am/pm (0-11)	Number	0
h	Hour in am/pm (1-12)	Number	12
m	Minute in hour	Number	30
s	Second in minute	Number	55
S	Millisecond	Number	978
z	Time zone	General time zone	Pacific Standard Time; PST; GMT-08:00
Z	Time zone	RFC 822 time zone	-0800

• Text:  if the number of pattern letters is 4 or more, the full form is used; otherwise a short or abbreviated form is used if available.
• Number:  the number of pattern letters is the minimum number of digits, and shorter numbers are zero-padded to this amount.
• Year:   the number of pattern letters is 2, the year is truncated to 2 digits; otherwise it is interpreted as a number.
• Month: If the number of pattern letters is 3 or more, the month is interpreted as text; otherwise, it is interpreted as a number.
• General time zone: Time zones are interpreted as text if they have names. For time zones representing a GMT offset value, the following syntax is used:

       GMTOffsetTimeZone:
               GMT Sign Hours : Minutes
       Sign: one of
               + -
       Hours:
               Digit
               Digit Digit
       Minutes:
               Digit Digit
       Digit: one of
               0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  Hours must be between 0 and 23, and Minutes must be between 00 and 59. The format is locale independent and digits must be taken from the Basic Latin block of the Unicode standard.

  For parsing, RFC 822 time zones are also accepted.

• RFC 822 time zone: For formatting, the RFC 822 4-digit time zone format is used:

       RFC822TimeZone:
               Sign TwoDigitHours Minutes
       TwoDigitHours:
               Digit Digit

  TwoDigitHours must be between 00 and 23. Other definitions are as for general time zones.

Examples

Date and Time Pattern	Result
yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z	2013.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
EEE, MMM d, ''yy	Wed, Jul 4, '01
h:mm a	12:08 PM
hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz	12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
K:mm a, z	0:08 PM, PDT
yyyyy.MMMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa	02013.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z	Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
yyMMddHHmmssZ	010704120856-0700
yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ	2013-07-04T12:08:56.235-0700