Hello Hello,

I'm working on a graph where the dates have to be displayed across Month/Day (i.e May19). I used a define to remove the year. However when I do an across the dates are displayed in alphabetical order.I want them to be displayed in the table order. Can someone tell me how to display month/day in smart dates? From what I have been reading in the previous posts, the reason why it is sorting alphabetically is because of the format alpha.


DEFINE FILE TEST
DATE/YYMD = BOOK_DATE;
DATE_2/A8YYMD =DATECVT(DATE, 'YYMD', 'A8YYMD');
MTH/A4 = EDIT(DATE_2,'$$$$99$$');
MTH_2/A4= DECODE MTH(01 Jan 02 Feb 03 Mar 04 Apr 05 May 06 Jun
07 Jul 08 Aug 09 Sep 10 Oct 11 Nov 12 Dec ELSE ' ');
DY/A4 = EDIT(DATE_2, '$$$$$$99');
MYDATE/A8 = MTH_2||DY;
END

If you don't mind the year showing as two digits this works
DATEDIST/MDYT = BOOKDATE;

I don't know what the magic combination if any exists to just have a smart date with just Month and Day only to get an alpha month.

Hi Leah,

Thanks for your suggestion but I don't want the year to show. For this graph I have a combination of 3 years. Showing the year would not be accurate. I really need to show only month/day.

Lex

We had the same problem and my solution is not so nice..
I added the number 01 - 12 in the datestring so
01 jan
02 feb
03 mar etc
but there might be a better solution.

Here is the solution:


DATE/HYYMD = HDTTM(BOOK_DATE, 8, 'HYYMD');
DATE1/HYYMD=DATE;
MY_DATE/HMtDN=DATE;

* The N removes the save between the month and day. i.e May18 instead of May 18.

if you do want the space: HMtD

Thanks
Lex

oohh that's very nice, lex

Another technique I found that works is using I8YYMD instead of A8YYMD. I8YYMD will sort the date numerically instead of alphabetically.

Hope this helps in the future.

-Jock

Thanks Jock!