Extracting Date from a string

Fisherman · 2006-08-03

I've almost got a dataport working here for my EDI feed, but I'm having trouble parsing the date.

Starting at position 13, and extending for 8 characters, there is a date field in the file with a format of 'YYYYMMDD'.

I have tried to use the following syntax to extract the date, but the result I'm getting is ValidDemandDate (global variable) is FALSE.

Can anyone troubleshoot this one line for me?

ValidDemandDate := EVALUATE(DemandDate,COPYSTR(EDIRecord.RecordData,13,8));

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-08-03

Strange. It looks perfect to me. Maybe you should drop the left part of the line and then EVALUATE will throw an error message and then it will take us closer to what's wrong.

One thing is sure. EVALUATE expect dates in the format set in your Territorial and Local Settings in Windows. I think it will be the reason.

Fisherman · 2006-08-03

Could be. I'll try that and see.

Is there any way to use FORMAT to extract a date like this?

zeninoleg · 2006-08-03

I had the same problem with my EDI files, I had to write a small function to rearrange the string before EVALUATE

DenSter · 2006-08-03

FORMAT is used mostly to format a date into the desired format, I don't think it will work the other way aorund.

try this:

MyDateString := COPYSTR(EDIRecord.RecordData,13,8);
EVALUATE(YearInt,COPYSTR(MyDateString,1,4));
EVALUATE(MonthInt,COPYSTR(MyDateString,5,2));
EVALUATE(DayInt,COPYSTR(MyDateString,7,2));
MyValidDate := DMY2DATE(DayInt,MonthInt,YearInt);

Where YearInt, MonthInt and DayInt are integers. I have not tested this, but I am pretty sure it'll work.

Of course you would ideally put this in a function with the MyDateString as a parameter and a date as return value.

Miklos_Hollender · 2006-08-03

Let's look at the error message first. If it is about the date format, then you can

1) Set the Terrotorial Settings in Windows on that machine

2) Write a function (an ugly bunch of COPYSTR's) that creates a string that is in the same format the Territorial Settings typically expect.

FORMAT isn't useful in this case, because it works vice versa, it creates a string out of something else.

Fisherman · 2006-08-03

Ahh... ok.

I'll do that and post the results.

I thought I could nest a format() call inside of EVALUATE() to rearrange the string before passing into the evaluate function.

Thanks! I'll you know the results.

zeninoleg · 2006-08-03

That is what I had to do(just found it):

FormatDate(DateTXT : Text[8]) rDate : Date
IF NOT EVALUATE(rDate, COPYSTR(DateTXT, 7,2)+COPYSTR(DateTXT,5,2)+COPYSTR(DateTXT,3,2)) THEN
  rDate := WORKDATE;

I was getting DDMMYY from YYYYMMDD. Hope this helps

Feldballe · 2006-08-04

DenSter wrote:
FORMAT is used mostly to format a date into the desired format, I don't think it will work the other way aorund.

try this:
MyDateString := COPYSTR(EDIRecord.RecordData,13,8);
EVALUATE(YearInt,COPYSTR(MyDateString,1,4));
EVALUATE(MonthInt,COPYSTR(MyDateString,5,2));
EVALUATE(DayInt,COPYSTR(MyDateString,7,2));
MyValidDate := DMY2DATE(DayInt,MonthInt,YearInt);
Where YearInt, MonthInt and DayInt are integers. I have not tested this, but I am pretty sure it'll work.

Of course you would ideally put this in a function with the MyDateString as a parameter and a date as return value.

One tiny problem though. This code only works if datevalues are not null. That happens sometimes, so you would have to test for either Yearint, Monthint and Dayint not being null or zero. But then again, it goes without saying :whistle:

DenSter · 2006-08-07

The beauty of posting code snippets is that you don't have to develop a working solution, so I don't have to worry about error handling and that sort of thing. The question was how to evaluate a date value, and that's what the code snippet does

.

David_Cox · 2006-08-07

Why Not Just:

IF EVALUATE(MyDate,STRSUBSTNO('%1/%2/%3',
COPYSTR(EDIRecord.RecordData,19,2),
COPYSTR(EDIRecord.RecordData,17,2),
COPYSTR(EDIRecord.RecordData,13,4)))THEN;

This will allow for an empty string as well, with the IF statement

I have not tested this bit of code but it will work!

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