Release data formatting (slashes or dashes?)

[Intothisworld]

So I'm reorganizing my library with a new dating scheme. I'm using the standard "Year" field for the release date of that particular release/remaster itself. And then I'm going to use the "Original Year" field for the original release date of the very first release of that album. But what I'm wondering is, is there any functional difference between using a dash to separate the year, month, & day (yyyy-mm-dd) and using a slash (yyyy/mm/dd). I know that sometimes MusicBee can recognize different elements within info in the same field, so what I'm wondering is if that matters in this case.

Also, a somewhat related question... I'm looking through Hiccup's Bible of Tags (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=26177.0), and I'm wondering what is the difference in purpose between "date (original release date)" and "date (original release year)." The descriptions aren't exactly clear to me.

Anyway, thank you for reading.

-David

[phred]

Also, a somewhat related question... I'm looking through Hiccup's Bible of Tags (https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=26177.0), and I'm wondering what is the difference in purpose between "date (original release date)" and "date (original release year)." The descriptions aren't exactly clear to me.

I'm not 100% certain for your first question, so I'll leave it for others to answer.

"Original release date" would be month, date, year, while "original release year" would be only the year. Hiccup will correct me if I'm wrong.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

So I'm reorganizing my library with a new dating scheme. I'm using the standard "Year" field for the release date of that particular release/remaster itself. And then I'm going to use the "Original Year" field for the original release date of the very first release of that album. But what I'm wondering is, is there any functional difference between using a dash to separate the year, month, & day (yyyy-mm-dd) and using a slash (yyyy/mm/dd). I know that sometimes MusicBee can recognize different elements within info in the same field, so what I'm wondering is if that matters in this case.

It sort depends on whether you're using ID3, APE or VORBIS tags.
If the latter two, you can put whatever you want, but if the former, MB will eventually split the YEAR tag into both a YEAR and DATE tag to conform to the ID3 specifications, and uses a slash to separate the month and day.

"Original release date" would be month, date, year, while "original release year" would be only the year. Hiccup will correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes.

[Intothisworld]

It sort depends on whether you're using ID3, APE or VORBIS tags.
If the latter two, you can put whatever you want, but if the former, MB will eventually split the YEAR tag into both a YEAR and DATE tag to conform to the ID3 specifications, and uses a slash to separate the month and day.

"Original release date" would be month, date, year, while "original release year" would be only the year. Hiccup will correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes.

Oh okay, and are those "Original Release Date" / "Original Release Year" fields I mentioned the two fields that would end up auto-populated like that? Or would that be something else?

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

The <Original Date> and <Original Year> fields are not auto-populated by any plugin or feature within MusicBee.
You'd have to add them yourself, or with another program.

If you use ID3 tags, the full date display of a <Year> tag in MusicBee would be made up of two different tags under the hood.

Code

<TYER>=2022 + <TDAT>=01/13 == <Year>=2022/01/13

If you use VORBIS or APE tags, the full date display sits only in the <Year> tag.

So, both...

Code

<Year>=2022/01/13 and <Year>=2022-01-13

...work.

[Intothisworld]

Awesome, thank you for your help. = )

[Zak]

I've recently started adding full dates instead of just the year.
After some experimentation, I arrived at this method and wrote this virtual tag to format dates that you might find useful.

Code

$IsNull(<Year>,Unknown,$If($IsMatch(<Year>,"[0-9]{4}-\?\?-\?\?"),$Left(<Year>,4),$If($IsMatch(<Year>,"[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-\?\?"),$Date($Replace(<Year>,-??,-01),MMM yyyy),$If($IsMatch(<Year>,"^[0-9]{4}$"),<Year>★,$Date(<Year>,d MMM yyyy)))))

It will display date tag values stored in the format

yyyy-MM-dd

as

d MMM yyyy

For older or obscure albums where I can't find the month or date or release I substitute question marks in the tag value and they will be omitted from the formatted value. MusicBee's $Date function defaults to the first of the month if you give it a date in the format yyyy-MM, which bugged me.
Finally, if it's an album that I haven't yet looked up to replace the older four digit year with the full date, it will show a star next to it to remind me to do that (and to distinguish it from an album that I couldn't find a release month for).

e.g.
The date values for these five albums, left-to-right are:

1989-10-20                    1994-03-??                  1999-??-??                   2000                         <No year tag>

(Yes, full dates are available for all of these albums - I've fudged them for demonstration purposes)

Disclaimer: I tag everything using Mp3tag and using full dates or non-numerical characters in year fields may break compatibility with other programs or apps. I haven't had any issues but YMMV.