Use Four Digit Year Default (-yr4def) to output a four-digit year from the EXPORT, MESSAGE and PUT UNFORMATTED statements that may use a two-digit year.

This option causes all dates to use a four-digit year, regardless of what is specified by the Century year Offset (-yy) startup parameter.

If you do not use this parameter, the EXPORT, MESSAGE and PUT UNFORMATTED statements produce a two-digit year for the date if it is within the 100 year period defined by the Century Year Offset (-yy) startup parameter. If the date is outside of that 100 year period, these statements produce a four-digit year for the date.

Using -yr4def does not affect statements such as DISPLAY, UPDATE and PUT (without UNFORMATTED), nor any default schema or program variable date formats, which continue to use the default format 99/99/99. These statements have the FORMAT phrase where an overriding date format can be given, if the 4-digit year is desired, or the fields and variables can be defined with the explicit 99/99/9999.