Data Types & Formats

VQL defines supported data types, standardized date and time formats, and response structures for querying Vault data.

Date & Time Formats

Date and DateTime field values are entered and returned in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), not the user’s time zone.
The Date format is YYYY-MM-DD. For example: '2016-01-16'.
The Date format assumes a time of midnight on the specified date (00:00:00).
The DateTime format is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSZ. For example: '2016-01-15T07:30:00.000Z'.
The DateTime format must end with the .000Z UTC expression. The zeros may be any number.
Dates and DateTimes must be surrounded by single quotes in the query string.

[Link to Explanations > Querying Specific Field Types]

Field Type	Specification / Constraint	Return Format
Long Text	Wildcard (`*`) searching on spaces is not supported.	String
Rich Text	Default return is 250 characters. Supports up to 32,000 plaintext characters.	String (with HTML)
Formula	Evaluated at runtime. Not searchable, cannot be used with `FIND`, `ORDER BY`, or `WHERE`.	Value or `null`
Lookup	`ORDER BY` and `WHERE` only supported for searchable lookups.	Read-only Value
Currency	Includes trailing decimal places based on currency type.	String (e.g., `"$10.00"`)

Vault queries support both JSON and XML response formats.
JSON (application/json) is the default response format.
To request an XML response, set the HTTP Request Header Accept to application/xml.