I'm not sure where to look for information on this...

I'd like to convert a numeric field to a webfocus date in a compute/define. It's 8 digits, YYYYMMDD.

What function does this? Is there something simple like oracle's to_date? Or do I have to typecast to a string, substr out the year, month and date seperately then feed them back into a function or something?

Thanks!

WebFOCUS Dates are a pain - a whole book has been written on the subject.

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT COUNTRY
COMPUTE DT1/I8 = 20071125; NOPRINT
COMPUTE DT2/I8YYMD = DT1; NOPRINT
COMPUTE DT3/YYMD = DT2;
END

DT1 is your numeric date. DT2 is the numeric date with a date format. DT3 is the date formatted field. You can do this in a DEFINE or a COMPUTE.

You can go further and convert this to a Date-Time field.

Date-Time:

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT COUNTRY
COMPUTE DT1/I8 = 20071125; NOPRINT
COMPUTE DT2/I8YYMD = DT1; NOPRINT
COMPUTE DT3/YYMD = DT2;
-*COMPUTE DT4/HYYMDS = DT3;
COMPUTE DT5/A14 = EDIT(DT2) | '000000';
COMPUTE DT6/HYYMDS = HINPUT(14, DT5, 8, 'HYYMDS');
END

You would think that the compute for DT4 would work - you want to convert a date field into a date-time field, but it doesn't work - that would be too easy.

quote:

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT COUNTRY
COMPUTE DT1/I8YYMD = 20071125; NOPRINT
COMPUTE DT3/YYMD = DT1;
END

For just the date, it is a simple equality. I used Francis' example and eliminated one COMPUTE.

And, as Francis also showed, date-time is a bit more convoluted.

You can't eliminate the compute if there is already a numeric field that needs to be converted to a date field. The existing field has to be converted to an I8YYMD field before being converted to a date field.

quote:

DATE_X/YYMD = DATECVT(&YYMD, 'I8YYMD', 'YYMD');

Yes, that would be lovely.

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT COUNTRY
COMPUTE DT1/I8 = 20071125; NOPRINT
COMPUTE DATE_X/YYMD = DATECVT(DT1, 'I8YYMD', 'YYMD');
END

Francis, never to old....

Did you read that book?

good work. thanks!

Frank, I will read that book on my next trip on the Titanic.

I find it intersting that everyone seems to be obsessed with using the integer date to begin with and then converting to a smart-date, or if need be, directly to the date-timestamp using the DT function?

Why not go directly to the smart-date?

TABLE FILE CAR
SUM COMPUTE MYSMARTDATE/YYMD = '20071108';
COMPUTE MYDATESTAMP/HYYMDS = DT(20071108);
BY COUNTRY
END

Well, the original question did start with "I'd like to convert a numeric field to a webfocus date".

If you have a field in a table (that you cannot modify, or modify the master for) that contains a date, but is defined as a numeric field, you would have to do what we've been talking about here.

Ah yes, another day, another OJ trial.

Ahhh, it does help to pay a little more attention to the origional question.

And, uhhh, OJ was never in that hotel - it's all a setup

Tom

I'ts easy...

-SET &STR = EDIT(&YYMD,'$$$$9999') || EDIT(&YYMD,'9999');
DEFINE FILE CAR
MYDATE/MDYY = '&STR';
END
TABLE FILE CAR
SUM MYDATE/YYMD
BY COUNTRY
END
  

I wonder why all the webfocus fuctions are so complicated.

It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to use trim. I've never seen a trim function, in any language, with as many parameters.

I agree. I don't know why the length of the string to be manipulated needs to be passed - the function should be able to figure that out, that's how it's done in almost all the other languages I've worked with.

Keeps it interesting.