A proper date conversion function?

[fernando.olmos at hpa.com.au]

Hi everyone. 
This is interesting... there must be a good date conversion function,
using defines, out there that is better than mine... 

This only works with dd/mm/yyyy, where dd and mm can be either single or
two values. What if the field t_field_03 (char*50 by the way) has an
invalid date like "1212/344/54874" or  a valid date of ddmmyyyy?

>From the client that sends us the files, they can send us anything,
including any valid date like ddmmyyyy, dd-mm-yyyy, dmy, dmmyyyy,
ddmyyyy, dmyyyy, etc... so we have to cater for all possible dates. It's
a shame COGNOS didn't think of writing a dateconv() function that
actually converts any date to a valid date data type. If there is one,
please let me know as I am pulling out my hair with all these defines!
hehehe

;Get the date required, but making sure that day and month 
;is properly adjusted if they are single digits. Format of the 
;date has to come in with 'slash' characters in the format: dd/mm/yyyy 

define t_slash1 num*2 = index(t_field_03,"/") 
define t_mmyyyy char*7 = t_field_03[(t_slash1 + 1):7] 
define t_slash2 num*2 = index(t_mmyyyy,"/") 
define t_date_required_d char*2 = t_field_03[1:(t_slash1 - 1)] & 
       if t_slash1 > 2 and t_rec_type = 1 & 
     else "0" + t_field_03[1:(t_slash1 - 1)] & 
       if t_rec_type = 1 
define t_date_required_m char*2 = t_mmyyyy[1:(t_slash2 - 1)] & 
       if t_slash2 > 2 and t_rec_type = 1 & 
     else "0" + t_mmyyyy[1:(t_slash2 - 1)] & 
       if t_rec_type = 1 
define t_date_required_y char*4 = t_mmyyyy[(index(t_mmyyyy,"/") + 1):4]
& 
       if t_rec_type = 1 
define t_date_required_c char*8 = pack(trunc(t_date_required_y) + & 
                                       trunc(t_date_required_m) + & 
                                       trunc(t_date_required_d)) & 
                              if t_num_error <> "C"       & 
                             and t_rec_type = 1        & 
                     else "0" 
define t_date_required date = nconvert(t_date_required_c) 



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