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Focal Point    Focal Point Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  WebFOCUS/FOCUS Forum on Focal Point     Date format in heading not printing properly

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Date format in heading not printing properly
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Guillo
Member
posted
I am trying to print the date used as a report input parameter to the report title but to display it in a different format. I am current prompting for START_DT whose date format is YYMD (ie: 20060930). When I add this to the heading title for display as &START_DT, it displays fine as 20060930. I want to display is as 09/30/2006.

I have added a define to change the format of the prompt field:

df_START_DT/MDYY = &START_DT

The code for the heading is as follows:

HEADING
"Billing Account Report"
"PO Nbr : &PO_NBR , Vendor : "Date Range From : &Start_DT

When I run it a get the error: INVALID DATE CONSTANT.

I've tried other formats but get similiar results. What am I doing wrong?
 
Posts: 25 | Registered: March 15, 2006Report This Post
susannah
Expert
posted Hide Post
Guillo, you've got to convert it first.
It starts life as a characterstring.
you have to convert it from a character string to a smart date.
You can use the DATECVT function if you like, it works fine in DM.
There are a lot of other ways



In Focus since 1979///7706m/5 ;wintel 2008/64;OAM security; Oracle db, ///MRE/BID
 
Posts: 3811 | Location: Manhattan | Registered: October 28, 2003Report This Post
Guillo
Member
posted Hide Post
Susannah, thank you for the quick response.

I've tried the following format on the DEFINE:

df_Start_DT/MDYY = DATECVT(&Start_DT,YYMD,MDYY);

But after running it I get:

(FOC258) FIELDNAME OR COMPUTATIONAL ELEMENT NOT RECOGNIZED: YYMD

Is the input format for the DATECVT function the right one?
 
Posts: 25 | Registered: March 15, 2006Report This Post
Francis Mariani
Expert
posted Hide Post
Syntax:

DATECVT(date, 'infmt', 'outfmt');


Francis


Give me code, or give me retirement. In FOCUS since 1991

Production: WF 7.7.05M, Dev Studio, BID, MRE, WebSphere, DB2 / Test: WF 8.1.05M, App Studio, BI Portal, Report Caster, jQuery, HighCharts, Apache Tomcat, MS SQL Server
 
Posts: 10577 | Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Registered: April 27, 2005Report This Post
Guillo
Member
posted Hide Post
I believe that I've used the format as you've indicated. I guess what I'm asking is, is the standard form for dates actually YYMD since what is displayed and entered in the prompt is in the form of: 20061001 (YYMD)?
 
Posts: 25 | Registered: March 15, 2006Report This Post
Sandy Weller
Silver Member
posted Hide Post
-SET &START_DT ='20060906';
DEFINE FILE CAR
DF_START_DX/YYMD = DATECVT(&START_DT,'I8YYMD','YYMD');
DF_START_DT/MDYY = DATECVT('&START_DT','A8YYMD','MDYY');
END
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT DF_START_DT
DF_START_DX
BY COUNTRY
END

The quotes around the in and out are required and since &start_dt is not really YYMD you need I8 or A8 and quotes as needed.

Sandy
 
Posts: 38 | Location: Chicago, IL area | Registered: June 16, 2004Report This Post
susannah
Expert
posted Hide Post
nuance...format YYMD indicates a 'smart date'
a smart date is an integer , the number days elapsed since the beginning of the last millenium, its a number on the order of 38000.
Your &var date is most likely 20060517
which isn't YYMD, its I8YYMD, even tho it might look like YYMD, it isn't.



In Focus since 1979///7706m/5 ;wintel 2008/64;OAM security; Oracle db, ///MRE/BID
 
Posts: 3811 | Location: Manhattan | Registered: October 28, 2003Report This Post
codermonkey
Platinum Member
posted Hide Post
DM "thinks" in alpha or numeric only. You can define a smart date field directly from a DM variable. I think yours didn't work because you tried to drop &START_DT into a MDYY and 20 is not a valid month.

Although you've been given a solution, I wanted to post about why your initial approach didn't work. You could have tweaked it as follows:
-SET &VAR1 = 20060930;
DEFINE FILE CAR
DATE1/YYMD = &VAR1;
DATE2/MDYY = DATE1;
-* or if you want to do it in one step...
DATE3/MDYY =
EDIT(EDIT('&VAR1','$$$$99') | EDIT('&VAR1','$$$$$$99') | EDIT('&VAR1','9999'));
END
-*
TABLE FILE CAR
HEADING
"DATE2: "DATE3: PRINT COUNTRY
END
Always a bunch of ways to do stuff in FOCUS....
 
Posts: 118 | Location: DC | Registered: May 13, 2005Report This Post
<Aparna>
posted
quote:
Originally posted by Guillo:
I am trying to print the date used as a report input parameter to the report title but to display it in a different format. I am current prompting for START_DT whose date format is YYMD (ie: 20060930). When I add this to the heading title for display as &START_DT, it displays fine as 20060930. I want to display is as 09/30/2006.

I have added a define to change the format of the prompt field:

df_START_DT/MDYY = &START_DT

The code for the heading is as follows:

HEADING
"Billing Account Report"
"PO Nbr : &PO_NBR , Vendor : "Date Range From : &Start_DT

When I run it a get the error: INVALID DATE CONSTANT.

I've tried other formats but get similiar results. What am I doing wrong?



is &START_DT an input field then you need to user it as
df_START_DT/MDYY = '&START_DT';

one minor change. put &START_DT in single quotes
 
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Guillo
Member
posted Hide Post
Thank you all for your responses.

I applied the approach that Sandy suggested and it worked beautifully. I only had to add the DEFINE statements as follows:

df_Start_DT/MDYY = DATECVT('&Start_DT','A8YYMD','MDYY');
df_End_DT/MDYY = DATECVT('&End_DT','A8YYMD','MDYY');

The final results printed, which is what I was after, was:

Date Range From : 10/01/2005 To : 09/29/2006

This approach seemed simple to apply with good results.
 
Posts: 25 | Registered: March 15, 2006Report This Post
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