supportlink 8.4

[pickerij@norbord.com]

Bob - please annotate and forward to Rosie Stipic
Rosie - you may consider this a letter to the editor

On page 55 of the recently delivered Supportlink vol. 8 number 4 there is   
a Quiz example suggesting two methods to set a report file name uniquely   
based on the date. I have a couple of comments regarding the examples   
given.

In the first example you have the following:
...
>define thisdate date = sysdate
>define today num*2 = dateextract(thisdate,day)
>define month num*2 = dateextract(thisdate,month)
>define part-2 char*6 = pack("T" + ascii(today) + ascii(month))
...

The preamble to the example indicates that the file name ("part-2") would   
be T2002 for Feb. 20. The above code would generate a file name of T202   
for Feb. 20. The same problem would exist for any other single digit days   
or months. The correct code should read:

>define part-2 char*6 = pack("T" + ascii(today,2) + ascii(month,2))

In the second example you have the following:
...
>define today char*2 = zerofill((ascii(sysdate))[7:2])
...

What possible use is the zerofill function? The ascii function will   
always return an eight character string (assuming century included). The   
substring function will always extract two characters. While the use of   
the zerofill function will not result in incorrect results in this case,   
it does seem superfluous.

More careful vetting of the examples would improve the quality and   
usefulness of the publication.

Regards,
John Pickering
JWP Systems Inc.
Toronto  

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