It is recommended that in all instances where calculations are required on a date, that the date is converted to an integer – then for display purposes converted back to a standard date format.
Once a date is in integer form it can then be used in further calculations (i.e. add 7 to calculate a week later or within an IF statement.
TODAY
TODAY returns an integer for today’s date
Related Topics
DATE
Purpose: | Returns the integer value of the date. This is useful if combined with get() or set() for report stores, or for comparison with other dates. |
Syntax | DATE(dd,mm,yyyy) |
Example of DATE Calculation
DATESTRING
datestring("dd/mm/yyyy") Returns the integer value of the date string.
WEEKDAY
weekday(a)Returns the number of the day in the week (where Sunday=1), if 'a' is the integer value of a date. For example, 11-Feb-04 is a Wednesday, so weekday(date(11,02,2004)) returns 3.
WEEKDAYS
Weekday(decimal-date1,decimal-date2)returns an integer for the number of weekdays (i.e. excluding weekends) between two dates
DAY
day(a)Returns the date in the month if 'a' is the integer value of a date.
MONTH
Purpose: | Converts a character string of numbers into an decimal |
Syntax | MONTH(integer) Returns the number of the month if passed the integer value of a date. |
Example of MONTH Calculation
YEAR
year(a) Returns the year (as a four-digit integer) if 'a' is the integer value of a date.
time
time$("12345")Would return 03:45:23