How do you retrieve a date value from a buffer-field in Progress Openedge?

I've got a buffer which contains a mix of data, number and character fields. I am getting the displaying the values of the fields, but for some reason date fields return "?" when I try to add them to a string.

I still get ? even if I do

ASSIGN lvString = lvString + STRING( hField:BUFFER-VALUE ).

I've also tried assigning the BUFFER-VALUE to a local DATE variable, and converting that to a string, but that doesn't work either - still ?.

However if I use the STRING-VALUE attribute, it works fine.

How do I get the value out as a date field, rather than just a string?

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