Fuzzy Dates

I suppose I could just use a text field, but even that would be annoying because if I convert an existing Date field to a text field, the data is erased. I already have 200 records, so converting to text would require me to cut and paste the existing date 200 times.

You could use a form script to translate the date field into a text field.

Following script would do that. You just need to update date_id and text_date_id to match your form.

function Convert_Date() {

	var date_id = 'fld-f74f442f93b7499aba86170cbab5e3a1';
	var text_date_id = 'fld-87e6c288a4e042c1bbfff27849a4b224';

	// loop over all records
	for (rec of form.getRecords()){
		let date = rec.getFieldValue(date_id); // get date
		if (date){ // if date exists
			let textDate = date.toLocaleDateString("en-US", { year: 'numeric', month: 'numeric', day: 'numeric' }); // create date string
			console.log(textDate);
			rec.setFieldValue(text_date_id, textDate); // store date string
		} else {
			console.log("Empty date");
		}
	}

	document.saveAllChanges();

}

Convert_Date();

The format it generates is 01/28/2018 which is the standard en-US format.

If you use let textDate = date.toLocaleDateString("en-US", { year: 'numeric', month: 'short', day: 'numeric' });, it creates Jan 28, 2018. Which is very readable but not sortable.

Or for the yyyy/mm/dd format, you can use following:

let day = date.getDate()<10 ? '0'+date.getDate():date.getDate();
let month = date.getMonth()<9 ? '0'+(date.getMonth()+1):(date.getMonth()+1);
let textDate = date.getFullYear()+'/'+month+'/'+day;

You can replace ‘/’ with ‘-‘ for dash separated dates, if you wish so.

There are international standards regarding formatting of date strings. But you can use whatever pleases you.

For the “28 Jan 2018” format, you can use
let textDate = date.toLocaleDateString("en-GB", { year: 'numeric', month: 'short', day: 'numeric' });. Obviously, this format is not sortable.

I guess it all depends on how you intend to use the form. Can’t really answer that. But you might want to hide the existing date field in order to preserve the original content without having to see it all the time.