Date Picker Translate Help

Question

Hi
We've been using jQuery date pickers long before APEX used them as standard so have our own way of implementing them, that being said it shouldn't have any effect on what I'm trying to do.
I have an application (APEX 4.2.1) that is used in a number of different languages. We don't use the APEX date picker and instead display dates as text fields, add a specific class to them and attributes as required. The class is picked up in javascript and the field is converted to a jQuery UI date picker with the attributes controlling certain behaviour (date restrictions etc.) This works fine and the date picker is translated to the different languages without a problem.
Now I have a page in which fields defined by the user are displayed along side APEX fields. To do this I'm using apex_item and generating items on the page based on settings controlled by the user in another part of the application. The APEX items are displayed followed by custom items using apex_item. Again, this works fine and I've used it many times before.
The problem I have is when a user creates a custom field which is a date picker and the date picker is translated.
If the user is viewing the page in Norwegian then for an APEX field the date picker is shown in Norwegian and if they select May 1st then 1-Mai-2013 is returned to the field. The value of this field is 1-Mai-2013 when the page is submitted, but somehow the value is saved in the database correctly and when the database is queried the date is saved as 01-MAY-2013. For a custom field the value is saved in the database as 1-Mai-2013 and when this is then viewed by a user in English the page errors with not a valid month.
My questions are:
- How does APEX save a translated date field? How does 1-Mai-2013 become a proper date? If I try to save this in the database, unsurprisingly I get an invalid month error.
- How can I use apex_item to have a date picker that is translated? apex_item.date_popup can't be used as this doesn't use the jQuery date picker. Perhaps this is a setting in jQuery UI to translate the date back? One solution is to use dd/mm/yyyy format, but I really don't want to do this.
Many thanks for your help. If you need any more info let me know.
Sara

Answer 1

Hi Mike
Thanks for the reply. When I said that it's saved as 01-MAY-2013, I was aware that it wasn't actually saved as this and is stored as a date. My point was that as a user I had entered the text 1-Mai-2013 on the screen and somehow it was changed to a date which when queried in the database was returned correctly as 01-MAY-2013. Showing that somehow it had been translated correctly from Norwegian. Even if I were to save my custom field value in a date column in the database, I would get an error as it would be trying to insert 1-Mai-2013 into a date column which isn't of the correct format. I think the problem can be resolved if I can convert the text in my custom field into a date.
I've been able to find a possible solution, but I'm having problems implementing this.
If I run
select to_date('03-Okt-2013','DD-Mon-YYYY','nls_date_language=NORWEGIAN') from dual;
this returns the correct date in the correct format (03-OCT-2013), which could be saved in my table and the problem would be resolved. I know what language is being used in my APEX session so I've used the following code to my procedure:
          CASE V('FSP_LANGUAGE_PREFERENCE')
          WHEN 'no' THEN v_value := to_date(v_value,'DD-Mon-YYYY','nls_date_language=NORWEGIAN');
          WHEN 'sv' THEN v_value := to_date(v_value,'DD-Mon-YYYY','nls_date_language=SWEDISH');
          WHEN 'pl' THEN v_value := to_date(v_value,'DD-Mon-YYYY','nls_date_language=POLISH');
          ELSE v_value := to_date(v_value,'DD-Mon-YYYY');
          END CASE;
I've tested this through SQL*Plus and it works perfectly. The dates are always converted from Norwegian to English (the default for the database) DD-MON-YYYY.
However, when I run the same code through APEX it doesn't work. The date is still stored as Norwegian. If I enter 10-Mai-2013 in the field that is exactly what is stored in the database. I've even added debug to make sure it's running the right bit of code and it is.
Why would this code work in SQL but not through an APEX session? And is there anything I can do to resolve this?!
Many thanks
Sara