working with dates

[pvuppa1]

Can anyone tell me how to play with dates. I need to be able to manipulate the user input frm YY format to YYMMDD to be date and month specific reports. In a nutshell, user will provide me an year and I need to be able to generate reports based on that year
Eg., for the year 1900, I need to creat a report for 4 quarters in a year like for 19000101(jan) 19000401(apr) 19000801(aug) 19001201(dec)
Please help.
Thank
-P

 

[kiddpete]

Sure, you can define a field like;

TESTDT/A8YYMD='UserYear' | '0401';

where UserYear is, for example, 2003. TESTDT will then display in a report as;

2003/04/01

You can also compute a real date as;

REALDT/YYMD=TESTDT;

if you need a date field for date arithmetic, sorting, etc.

 

[pvuppa1]

Thanks Kiddpete,
It really helped me but I need to add +1 for the year field inorder to process for 3rd and 4th qtrs. The fiscal yr starts from July01
Qtr1Start/A8YYMD='useryear' | 0701;
Qtr1End/A8YYMD='useryear' | 0931;
Qtr2Start/A8YYMD='useryear' | 1001;
Qtr2End/A8YYMD='useryear' | 1231;

how do i add useryear+1
i tried
compute
useryr/yy='useryear'+1;
useryear1/A8YYMD= useryr;
gave me an error message..
Please help

 

[kiddpete]

If useryear is a numeric field, you could compute:

workyear/I4=useryear+1;

then:

TESTDT/A8YYMD=EDIT(workyear) | '0401';

If useryear is a alphanumeric field, then:

workyear/I4=EDIT(useryear)+1;

and, if useryear is an amper (&) variable, you could;

-SET &useryear=&useryear+1;

then compute:

TESTDT/A8YYMD='&useryear' | '0401';


HTH

 

[pvuppa1]

Hi Kiddpete,
sorry to post the same question in two threads but I still cant find what I was looking for, please bear with me for just a moment
here's what i have with me
1.
DEFINE FILE MYFILE
YEAR/YY='&REPORT_YYYY';

TESTDT1/A8YYMD='YEAR' | '0701';
BEGDATE/YYMD=TESTDT1;TESTDT2/A8YYMD='YEAR' | '0931';
ENDDATE/YYMD=TESTDT2;

TESTDT3/A8YYMD='YEAR' | '1001';
BEGDATE1/YYMD=TESTDT3;
TESTDT4/A8YYMD='YEAR' | '1231';
ENDDATE1/YYMD=TESTDT4;


*****After this point I need Year=Year+1...I tried all the methods like you said. Please Help

TESTDT5/A8YYMD='YEAR'| '0101';
BEGDATE2/YYMD=TESTDT5;
TESTDT6/A8YYMD='YEAR'| '0331';
ENDDATE2/YYMD=TESTDT6;

TESTDT7/A8YYMD='YEAR'| '0401';
BEGDATE3/YYMD=TESTDT7;
TESTDT8/A8YYMD='YEAR'| '0630';
ENDDATE3/YYMD=TESTDT8;

( for some reason when i display BEGDATE it gives me ********)
2.
For displaying quarters accross I have
BEGMONTH/M=BEGDATE;
BEGMONTH1/M=BEGDATE1;
BEGMONTH2/M=BEGDATE2;
BEGMONTH3/M=BEGDATE3;
QUARTER/I1=IF BEGMONTH FROM 7 TO 9 THEN 1 ELSE
IF BEGMONTH1 FROM 10 TO 12 THEN 2 ELSE
IF BEGMONTH2 FROM 1 TO 3 THEN 3 ELSE
IF BEGMONTH3 FROM 4 TO 6 THEN 4;
QRTNUM/A3=DECODE QUARTER(1, '1ST', 2, '2ND', 3, '3RD', 4, '4TH');
but it just displays only "2nd" even when I have begmonth1/2/3 falling in different months..
PLEASE HELP

 

[pvuppa1]

I think my question is how to change the date format from year in I4 to YYMD with my own MD.
DEFINE MYFILE
YEAR/I4='&USER_YEAR';
TESTDT/A8YYMD=EDIT('YEAR') | '0701';
REALDT/YYMD=TESTDT;
END
Something is wrong with the format
-P

 

[kiddpete]

OK, assuming that &USER_YEAR is 2003, your YEAR compute should be:

YEAR/I4=&USER_YEAR;

since YEAR is a numeric field. Further, one function of EDIT is converting integers to alphanumeric, so you write that compute as;

TESTDT/A8YYMD=EDIT(YEAR) | '0701';

Notice that, in both cases, your quotes have been removed. However, you don't need YEAR in this case. You can use &USER_YEAR directly as;

TESTDT/A8YYMD='&USER_YEAR' | '0701';

You need the quotes in this case because you are building an alphanumeric string. The DEFINE FILE will actually 'see' the following;

TESTDT/A8YYMD='2003' | '0701';

which is two alphanumeric strings being concatenated. Now, when you want to set up a value for next year, your code would be;

-SET &USER_YEAR=&USER_YEAR+1;
NEXTDT/A8YYMD='&USER_YEAR' | '0701';

It looks contradictory doesn't it? Its not. Dialogue Manager does not have a real strong data typing function, so the same amper variable can be used as a number on one line while being used as alpha numeric on the next line.

HTH

 

[pvuppa1]

Thank you so much and I appreciate ur help.
That was the first step i had to clear to do something more complicated.
I hope you can help me in my future postings.
Thanks for ur time
-P