Yesterday, today, etc in date field

I have one simple db in which entering yesterday, today, etc. in a date field just gives me that very word rather than the date. I made a new db with one date field, and it worked as expected. What could be interfering with this?

The only reason I can think of that makes any sense is that it’s actually a text field.

If you’re not in the data sheet, it could be you are setting a variable with the same or similar name, but if it shows up as today in the data sheet, that has to be a text field.

It’s definitely a date field, but after your answer it suddenly started
working right. Magic! thanks.

Bill

Dave is correct, this is the only possible reason. A date field cannot even hold a value like “today” or “yesterday”, it can only hold numbers (which are displayed using a date pattern).

Yes, I understand that and it makes sense. I don’t have any variables in the db with names that could be introducing confusion, though, and all the fields involved are line item fields set to the date type. As I said above, after I first wrote suddenly everything started working as expected, so I guess it was just some passing weirdness and we can ignore it.
Thanks,
Bill