# Date Truncation Truncates a date value or a timestamp to a specific part. For a date or a timestamp, you can truncate to the year, month, or day. For a timestamp, you can also truncate to the hour, minute, or second. ## Characteristics


Consistency	No, cannot be made consistent.
Linking	No, cannot be linked.
Differential privacy	No
Data-free	No
Allowed for primary keys	No
Allowed for unique columns	No
Uses format-preserving encryption (FPE)	No
Privacy ranking	5
Generator ID (for the API)	`DateTruncationGenerator`

## How to configure To configure the generator: 1. From the dropdown list, select the part of the date or timestamp to truncate to.\ \ For both date and timestamp values, you can truncate to the year, month, or day. When you select one of these options, the time portion of a timestamp is set to 00:00:00. For the date, the values below the selected truncation value are set to 01. For example, when you truncate to month, the day value is set to 01, and the timestamp is set to 00:00:00.\ \ For a timestamp value, you also can truncate to the hour, minute, or second. The date values remain the same as the original data. The time values below the selected truncation value are set to 00. For example, when you truncate to minute, the seconds value is set to 00. 2. Toggle the **Birth Date** option.\ \ When you enable **Birth Date**, the generator shifts dates that are more than 90 years before the generation date to the date exactly 90 years before the generation date.\ \ For example, data generation occurs on January 1, 2023. Any date that occurs before January 1, 1933 is changed to January 1, 1933.
This is mostly intended for birthdate values, to group birthdates for everyone who is older than 89 into a single year. This is used to comply with HIPAA Safe Harbor. 3. From the **Fallback Generator** dropdown list, select how to handle values that the generator cannot process.\ \ By default, this is set to **Fail on error**, meaning that the generation fails when a value cannot be processed.\ \ You can instead assign a fallback generator, either: 1. Passthrough, to pass through the value without changing it. 2. Constant, to use a replacement value that you provide. 3. Null, to null out the value. 4. If [Structural data encryption](/app/generation/generators-assign-config/generators-data-encryption-config.md) is enabled, then to use it for this column, in the advanced options section, toggle **Use data encryption process** to the on position. ## Truncation examples Here are examples of date and time values and how the selected truncation affects the output:

Option	Date value	Timestamp value
Original value	2021-12-20	2021-12-20 13:42:55
Truncate to year	2021-01-01	2021-01-01 00:00:00
Truncate to month	2021-12-01	2021-12-01 00:00:00
Truncate to day	2021-12-20	2021-12-20 00:00:00
Truncate to hour	Not applicable	2021-12-20 13:00:00
Truncate to minute	Not applicable	2021-12-20 13:42:00
Truncate to second	Not applicable	2021-12-20 13:42:55

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