>>>>>>Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>As I go through my program, I see many places where I convert a string to date, using CTOD(), hard-coded with MM/DD/YYYY. But if the date is (for example), British ("DD/MM/YYYY") it won't work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>How do you suggest I change all places that use CTOD() from hard-coded use of American date system to another?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>TIA
>>>>>
>>>>>If I had to do this task, I would write a program to scan through every PRG, VCX, SCX, FRX, wherever there was code, and identify all of the expressions with CTOD() and replace them with my_ctod(), and then add FUNCTION my_ctod to my utility.prg or main.prg, whatever is in the SET PROCEDURE TO path.
>>>>>
>>>>>The my_ctod() function would take the incoming form in the MM/DD/YYYY and you could translate it on-the-fly and return the value. Something like this (untested, off the top of my head):
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>FUNCTION my_ctod
>>>>>LPARAMETERS tcDate
>>>>>LOCAL lnMm, lnDd, lnYyyy
>>>>>
>>>>> lnMm = INT(VAL(GETWORDNUM(tcDate, 1, "/")))
>>>>> lnDd = INT(VAL(GETWORDNUM(tcDate, 2, "/")))
>>>>> lnYyyy = INT(VAL(GETWORDNUM(tcDate, 3, "/")))
>>>>>
>>>>> * Compute date in a standard form
>>>>> RETURN DATE(lnYyyy + IIF(lnYyyy < 100, INT(YEAR(DATE()) / 1000) * 1000, 0), lnMm, lnDd)
>>>>>
>>>>>Something like that.
>>>>
>>>>Thank you. This sounds like a very good approach.
>>>
>>>I should point out that with GoFish, it shouldn't be very hard to simply change all those CTOD() calls to DATE() calls. You just write a little code to parse the CTOD() call to get the parameters and then create the corresponding DATE() call. Then you avoid all the workarounds.
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>
>>I prefer to change the CTOD() to DATE() manually because my entries are not consistent (currently) and I often hard-coded. When I go through them manually I make sure - and test - that it works for both American and Euro dates.
>
>You might be able to write the replacement function so it can figure out in most cases what to do and to just leave the other cases for manual work.
>
>Even if you don't want to do that, consider using GoFish to find them and using its Replace Line feature to let you handle them one-by-one. That should still speed things up.
>
>Tamar
GoFish, I am sure, will find all cases. But I will be overwhelmed with so many. So, my plan - so far - is to go library (.VCX) by library. Open in the VFP IDE and get the source for all classes and methods. The Alt-F and look for all cases of CTOD(). I know this is slower but I think more stable. But maybe I will still do the GoFish approach.
"The creative process is nothing but a series of crises." Isaac Bashevis Singer
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all." Oscar Wilde
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." W.Somerset Maugham