[AccessD] All-In-One Date format Function:

Doug Barnes doug at starntech.com
Wed Oct 21 14:42:39 CDT 2009


What if you just entered the day "21" and re-format that to
currentMonth/21/currentYear?

Douglas Barnes

Starn Technical Services
P.O. Box 1172
1057 French Street
Meadville, PA  16335

P: 814.724.1045
F: 814.337.3460


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Robert
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:18 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] All-In-One Date format Function:


Thanks for the reply Lambert,
  The great thing is, I don't have to worry about in what order the date is
entered. Currently all dates are entered in "09/21/09" format. The request
is "we would like to minimum keystrokes (see below) and have the users enter
the date as 0909 for CC and 092109 for all other date fields.  (I want to
parse the date and format it correctly to protect against 909 or 32109.. etc
entries...

 The owner want the fastest possible key entry to his employees. Reaching
for a mouse is not an option here..;-)

Even if I did have to worry about the date order, I should be able to format
the end entry to the system formatting very easily right?, it's the parsing
that's the challenge.. :-)

Thanks Again

WBR
Robert




-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Heenan, Lambert
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:49 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] All-In-One Date format Function:

Robert,

If you would like to remain sane they I suggest you step away from the
problem. "I would like the user to enter it the way they want to" is just
not a good idea. What if your company hires a Brit who wants to enter
10/1/09 - meaning January 10th 2009? Or a Japanese who enters 10/01/09 but
means January 9th 2010?

To me, the simplest solution to managing date input is to not permit
freeform entry, but rather to pop up a small calendar form any time a Date
field is clicked on.

As for a routine to convert existing freeform dates? I don't think you can
beat Cdate([YourData])

Cdate can handle just about anything that looks like a date and if it's
unambiguous will give you a real date back. It will of course assume
mm/dd/yyyy when the input data is not clear. Just another reason NOT to
allow freeform date entry. Feed it really weird input like 92109 and you
will get back 3/7/2152, because that date is 92,109 days after 12/30/1899 -
the basis of Access dates.

Doing any better than this is going to require various assumptions to be
coded regarding what comes first a month a day or a year. Why have the
problem to deal with? Use a calendar form.

Lambert

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Robert
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:17 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: [AccessD] All-In-One Date format Function:

Hoooooowdy,
 Before re-inventing the wheel here, does anyone have or know of a function
that can handle "free form" date formatting. I'm looking for a function that
can parse any input and then format is correctly.

Example of user inputs:

0909
09/21/09
09-21-09
092109
92109
9212009

etc.

I don't want to use any formatting / Masking settings at the field or table
level. I would like the user to enter it the way they want to (to the most
degree possible)...

WBR
Robert




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