Overview

Starting with Version 6.4 of the Advanced Tables for Confluence add-on, it is possible to specify the format that is used to view date columns. The actual data is not changed, just how it is displayed. This helps to keep the data looking consistent even if the provided data is not. This can be enabled by using the M column type for the Column Types parameter corresponding to the column. Advanced Date Sorting specifies how to use the M column type to customize how the column data is interpreted as a data. With an additional specification, the format of how the date should appear when viewed.

Two date formats are needed to support both interpreting the data and formatting the output.

Input format - this is first format specified on the M column type, although it is usually defaulted when nothing is specified. See Advanced Date Sorting for more details.
Display format - this is how you want the date to be displayed and sorted. If not specified, the column displays as is. The display format is similar but, necessarily, more complex than the input format. It is summarized below. The ~ character is used to separated the input and display formats to avoid most conflicts with characters used in formats.

Examples

Column type	Input format	Display format
M~YYYY.MM.DD	<default>	YYYY.MM.DD
MDDMMMYYYY~YYYY.MM.DD	DDMMMYYYY	YYYY.MM.DD
M(de)DDMMMYYYY~YYYY.MM.DD	(de)DDMMMYYYY	YYYY.MM.DD

Usage

The Formatting Options listed on this page can be defined through the Column Types parameter within the following Macros:

Screenshot

Formatting Options

Acknowledgement

Advanced date sorting support with the M column type is provided using javascript implemented by the Table Library for Bob Swift Add-ons with the help of the Moment.js library (open source, MIT license). A summary of the relevant parts of the moment.js documentation is repeated here.