convert month into number 1

[alisaif]

Hi,

How can I convert month in text into number (numeric) like

January
1
February
2
..
..
..
December
12

Thanks

Saif

 

[Olaf Doschke]

see MONTH()
also see YEAR(), DAY(), HOUR(), MINUTE(), and SEC(). We have functions to get any part of a date or datetime value.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Sorry, misunderstood.

If you have the text "December", then CTOD() can help, if you don't have just the month name, but a long date format.

A simple solution to lookup the month number by a month name is to create a lookup table with (name, monthnumber), index on name and seek it or use LOOKUP(). There is no function turning month names to month numbers.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[mmerlinn]

Olaf is correct. Make a lookup table.

However, a table with only 12 entries does not need to be indexed as you will not notice any difference in speed using LOCATE versus SEEK.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

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[NasibKalsi]

Just to add to the above solutions -

* Declare the variables as required, i.e. public, private or local
Cx_MonthNames = upper("Xyz,Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec")

* Then, to convert MonthNumber to MonthName
i_MonthNumber = at(','+left(upper(MonthName),3),cx_MonthNames) / 4 && add comma(,) to cut the error


* Further, to convert MonthNumber to MonthName
MonthName = substr(cx_MonthNames,MonthNumber*4+1,3)


nasib

 

[stanlyn]

What about a simple case statement...

cMonthName = upper(left(alltrim(cMonthName),3))

do case
case cMonthName = "JAN"
nMonthNumber = 1
case cMonthName = "FEB"
nMonthNumber = 2
case cMonthName = "MAR"
nMonthNumber = 3
case cMonthName = "APR"
nMonthNumber = 4
.........
endcase

By using a case statement, you can tweak it to whatever. Here I defined it exactly as 3 character uppercase months...
Stanley

 

[Mike Lewis]

Or, yet another possibility:

lcValueToTest = <the month name to test>

DIMENSION MonthNames(12)
MonthNames(1) = "January"
MonthNames(2) = "February"
MonthNames(3) = "March"
MonthNames(4) = "April"
MonthNames(5) = "May"
MonthNames(6) = "June"
MonthNames(7) = "July"
MonthNames(8) = "August"
MonthNames(9) = "September"
MonthNames(10) = "October"
MonthNames(11) = "November"
MonthNames(12) = "December"

lnMonthNumber = ASCAN(MonthNames, lcValueToTest, -1, -1, 1)

All the suggestions you have received are equally valid. Just choose the one you like the best. Some will be faster than others, but unles you are doing this in a loop that's executed thousands of times, a difference in performance is not likely to be noticeable.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[alisaif]

Thanks for the reply!

I am using stanlyn solution:

cMonthName = upper(left(alltrim(cMonthName),3))
do case
case cMonthName = "JAN"
nMonthNumber = 1
case cMonthName = "FEB"
nMonthNumber = 2
case cMonthName = "MAR"
nMonthNumber = 3
case cMonthName = "APR"
nMonthNumber = 4
.........
endcase

Thanks

Saif