Entrez Date [EDAT]

The Entrez Date field contains the date that a record was initially added to PubMed.

• It is in the format yyyy/mm/dd.
• Use [edat] to qualify Entrez Date, as in 1999/07/10[edat].
• Inclusion of the month and day is optional, so the entry may appear as 1999[edat] or 1999/07[edat].

Be aware that the Entrez Date will remain unchanged and is not updated to reflect the date a publisher supplied record is elevated to In Process or when an In Process record is elevated to MEDLINE.

The Entrez Date can also be set from the pull-down menu in Limits.

Publication Date [DP]

The Publication Date is the date that the article was published.

• Use [dp] to qualify Publication Date.
• Use the format of yyyy/mm/dd, as in 1984/10/06[dp].
• Inclusion of the month and day is optional and the entry may appear as 1984[dp] or 1984/10[dp].
• Note that Publication Date formats are not standardized from journal to journal.

Ranging

To include ranging values for Publication or Entrez Dates, use the colon (:). For example: 1993:1997[dp] or 1997:1999[edat].

The Publication Date and Entrez Date ranges can be easily searched from Limits.