Is there a better way?

[TJ_Tigger]

I was working on a piece of a script that checks the file written date and compares it to the current system date. The format of the two dates is different. for the system date I used

mm = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_MONTH);
dd = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_DAY);
yyyy = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_YEAR);
dow = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_DAYOFWEEK);

and it returns a string for instance for today it would return
mm = 02
dd = 09
yyyy = 2004
dow = 2

I then wanted to convert this to a comparable format that is retrieved by the File.GetAttributes (table.WriteDate). Which is returned as

Monday, February 09, 2004

To do this I created two tables and had to convert the above GetDate information to a number.

Here are the tables and script, but is there an easier way?
[code]--Month table
month = {};
month[1] = "January";
month[2] = "February";
month[3] = "March";
month[4] = "April";
month[5] = "May";
month[6] = "June";
month[7] = "July";
month[8] = "August";
month[9] = "September";
month[10] = "October";
month[11] = "November";
month[12] = "December";

--Day of the Week Table
dayoftheweek = {};
dayoftheweek[1] = "Sunday";
dayoftheweek[2] = "Monday";
dayoftheweek[3] = "Tuesday";
dayoftheweek[4] = "Wednesday";
dayoftheweek[5] = "Thursday";
dayoftheweek[6] = "Friday";
dayoftheweek[7] = "Saturday";

--Get date information and convert month and day of week to numbers
mm = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_MONTH);
mm = String.ToNumber(mm);
dd = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_DAY);
yyyy = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_YEAR);
dow = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_DAYOFWEEK);
dow = String.ToNumber(dow);

--Display information as "DayOfWeek, Month dd, yyyy"
Dialog.Message("Date", "The current date is "..date.."\r\nor "..dayoftheweek[dow]..", "..month[mm].." "..dd..", "..yyyy, MB_OK, MB_ICONNONE, MB_DEFBUTTON1)
[\code]

[Stefan_M]

Maybe this helps

sys_year = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_YEAR);
sys_month = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_MONTH);
sys_day = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_DAY);
sys_all=sys_year..sys_month..sys_day;
num_sys_all = String.ToNumber(sys_all);

datei = File.GetAttributes(_SourceFolder.."\\autoplay\\aut orun.cdd");
datei_date=datei.WriteDateISO;
datei_year=String.Mid(datei_date, 1, 4);
datei_month=String.Mid(datei_date, 6, 2);
datei_day=String.Mid(datei_date, 9, 2);
datei_all=datei_year..datei_month..datei_day;
num_datei_all = String.ToNumber(datei_all);

if (num_sys_all~=num_datei_all) then
--do something here
else
--do something else here
end

Stefan

[Lorne]

Whoa, you guys are making this way too difficult.

This is all you need right here:

systemDate = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_ISO);
tbAttrib = File.GetAttributes(_SourceFolder.."\\autoplay\\autorun.cdd");

if(systemDate == tbAttrib.WriteDateISO)
	-- dates match!
else
	-- dates don't match
end

Heck, you can even use > and < to do greater-than or lesser-than comparisons on ISO dates as strings.

No need to break the dates into parts, or convert them to numbers, or any of that.

[Stefan_M]

Hi Lorne,

I looked at the Onlinehelp and found the two functions

table File.GetAttributes ( string Filename )
WriteDateISO string The last date the file was written to, in ISO format (2003-06-18T14:55:05).

string System.GetDate ( number DateType )
DATE_FMT_ISO 2 ISO Date (YYYY-MM-DD)

I didn't see that I can compare this two strings
file_date: 2004-02-10T20:06:52
sys_date: 2004-02-10


Stefan

[Lorne]

Ah, sorry. Didn't realize it included the time. (Can you tell I didn't bother testing that script? ) That's no big deal, though. Just trim the excess off using String.Left, or add the time onto the other one if you need it to be time-specific (although I highly doubt that would be the intent in this case).

systemDate = System.GetDate(DATE_FMT_ISO);

-- we only want the date part, not the time...so chop off
-- everything after the first 10 characters in systemDate
[b]systemDate = String.Left(systemDate,10);[/b]

tbAttrib = File.GetAttributes(_SourceFolder.."\\autoplay\\autorun.cdd");

if(systemDate == tbAttrib.WriteDateISO)
	-- dates match!
else
	-- dates don't match
end

[TJ_Tigger]

I figured there would be a better way to do it. As usual I picked a way (round peg) and stuck with it (square hole). Thanks for the sounding board.