Talk:Date Data Type

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Posted by Grant Foraker on September 14, 2009 at 14:43:13:

Adding a Date data type to Comet has been discussed at several past Dealer/Developer meetings. So, as a baby step, can we add a "D" field type to #CFILES.
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Right now the majority of dates in my files are either "YYYYMMDD" or "MM/DD/YYYY". The "YYYYMMDD" ones for date sorting (in keys mostly) and the "MM/DD/YYYY" ones for display.
The Date Serial Number is another possible option.
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So, in the Reporter
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SELECTING IF TRANS.DATE EQ "%FromDate%"
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would prompt a Date Picker because TRANS.DATE was a "D" instead of a "S" field.

Posted by Jon Sacks on September 15, 2009 at 06:28:44:

In Reply to: Date data type posted by Grant Foraker on September 14, 2009 at 14:43:13:
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All dates should be stored in the system as serial date/time and the mask applied indicates the way it should be displayed.

Posted by Steve Auerbach on September 15, 2009 at 07:41:34:

 In Reply to: Re: Date data type posted by Jon Sacks on September 15, 2009 at 06:28:44:
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Jon, of course, is right. Dates should be stored as serial date/time. Sadly the Q machine did not know about such sophistication. 
#CFILES has this legacy thing to deal with.
And, of course, I agree with Grant BUT we need more than a D type. We need type codes like those so mnemonically defined for DATE2NUM.
Easy to remember; flows trippingly from the tongue. Sadly we need more than one date code.

Posted by Jim Guerber on September 15, 2009 at 11:04:38:

In Reply to: Re: Date data type posted by Steve Auerbach on September 15, 2009 at 07:41:34:
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Of course you are all right. I totally agree that Comet should know about dates.
That is why we introduced the comet Julian date feature in the date2num() functions etc.
The thing we lack is some sort of syntax that the program could use to tell Comet what to do.
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I suggest you start a wiki page that could describe such a syntax.
Once the syntax is nailed down, we could start to build something.
As a start, look at the windows way of dealing with dates. Don't forget time as well.

Posted by Bob A on September 16, 2009 at 07:34:53:

In Reply to: Re: Date data type posted by Jim Guerber on September 15, 2009 at 11:04:38:
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"As a start, look at the windows way of dealing with dates. Don't forget time as well."
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I think there are two "Windows" ways....
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1) Windows the operating system, which is milliseconds since 00h00m00s GMT on 1970-01-01 which includes both date and time in one number
2) Windows Office which is days since 1899-10-30 followed by a fraction representing percent of a day (24 hours)
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since there is a long standing bug in the second date (see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214326 ),
I would surely propose keeping with the COMET serial number of days as the base for elapsed days.
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Although I will not profit from it, as I have COMET16, the COMET32 limit on the size of the numbers would easily allow the first option (milliseconds)
since we have access to this number easily thru NUM2DATE (Option #6)

Posted by steve auerbach on September 15, 2009 at 13:18:23:

In Reply to: Re: Date data type posted by Jim Guerber on September 15, 2009 at 11:04:38: .
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I think you're going further than Jon or I envision.   
What do you mean by "the program?" The Reporter?
All I want to do is to tell BB that this date is formated as mmddyy or yymmdd or yyyymmdd.
Then she can use Date2Num to deal with it properly.
I'd even settle for just putting the MTB type code in #CFILES so all she'd have to do is generate the right kind of Date2Num in the selecting statement.
What do you have in mind??

Posted by Jim Guerber on September 15, 2009 at 16:35:08:

In Reply to: Re: Date data type posted by steve auerbach on September 15, 2009 at 13:18:23:
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I was thinking of the whole IB language.
When you say "Tell Barbara", you could tell her over the phone, but it wouldn't matter.
Barbara handles both the IB compiler and the Report Generator. I am now guessing you are talking about the report generator only.
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After all Barbara is Comet Woman!, she can do anything.

Posted by Grant Foraker on October 01, 2009 at 10:11:06:

The Date Data Type thing sort of fizzled out. I wanted something in DbMGR and #CFILES. For now. The date sequence number has some advantages but I prefer human readable dates.
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So, how about a third option in the "F or S option". "D" for date and a new date format field in #CFILES that describes the format. 
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0 - date sequence
1 - YYYYMMDD
2 - MM/DD/YYYY
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etc.

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This should be enough for the Reporter and CMAINT to extract any date in any of the approved formats and prompt a Date Picker dialog.