update to yield a space character

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

Always a pleasure to actually win something!
Hope John can use it.

[John Cunradi]

Re: update to yield a space character

Ted,

Great idea. I've never quite thought of using a calculated field quite like that before. I've only thought in terms of applying math to a field.
That will open up some possibilities for future projects.

Works great !

Here's the code with my field names present: DTOC(DATE)+" "+TIME("0h:0m", TIME)

Thanks.

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

Thank you John. Like Tom and Stan, I've been ducking and diving with AS for years.
As Tom said, old school. Shows my age I suppose.

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

No but you can do this;
DTOC(THIS_DATE)+" "+TIME("0h:0m", THIS_TIME)

I made an additional field in the table which is a Calculated construct of the THIS_DATE fields which is just Date, and the Short Time field THIS_TIME.
When exported, the data in Notepad looks like this.

13/06/2014 09:05 The spaces are there. You may have to play with the Delimeters.

Not sure if this actually works. time() works on a long time T not short time Y type filed.

But regardless, why work too hard when you could do this:
date+" "+time
Where date is type D and time is type Y ,which will yield the following:

dim date as d
dim time as Y
date=date()
time="08:20 pm"
?date+" "+time
= "06/14/2014 08:20:00 00 pm"

And if the extra zero (seconds, milliseconds) are undesirable, you could do this:

?time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m am", ctodt(date+" "+time))
= "06/14/2014 08:20 pm"

But to the main question, which is in reality how to convert a dbf file to a csv file and asides from the fact that there are a lot of third party software/shareware to do that, you could do this by several means without adding any more fields nor using any third party software.
For instance, you could:
1-Export the file to Excel as csv and combine the fields in Excel , or (what I would personally do)
2-Intialize the table in an array and dump the array into a text file.

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

He doesn't want the am or pm either G, and is capturing the time in a separate field.
So what benefit does using an Array have over a calculated field?
Won't you still need to format the time element?

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

He doesn't want the am or pm either

You could do this:

?time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m", ctodt(date+" "+time))
= "06/14/2014 08:20"

Which does not make sense to me. How would you know if it's 8:20 am or 8:20 pm? Unless either it doesn't matter, or you don't care, or you live in the North or South Pole, or, it's a military time, which I might have overlooked.

So what benefit does using an Array have over a calculated field?

Why add more fields to the table when you don't have to? particularly, calc field? and just for the purpose of exporting? It's like eating your steak with a cleaver and a pitch fork....... Doable.... not so royal.

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

You could do this:

Code:
?time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m", ctodt(date+" "+time))
= "06/14/2014 08:20"

I don't think it works in an Alpha Export Operation. That is the problem and why I went for the Calculated Field. It is also easier to understand, quicker to do and easier to test.

2-Intialize the table in an array and dump the array into a text file.

I'm interested in this approach never having used arrays in Alpha (3/4 dimensional in SOBS Basic yes, but not had any need to use them in Alpha).
Can you show us the code which would give the date [space] time HH:MM like - [01/01/1900[ ] 12:45] from a Table which can be placed into a CSV file using whatever "dump" routine you would use please?

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

Create a simple table, let's call it "Ted" with the following fields:
date D
Time Y
Run this script:

cnt=tablecount("ted",".t.")
dim arr[cnt] as p
arr.initialize_from_table("ted")
for i=1 to cnt
	arr[i].both=time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m",ctodt(arr[i].date+" "+arr[i].time))
	next
txt=arr.dump_properties("both")	
msgbox(txt)

You could save the contents of the variable txt to any text or csv file of your choice

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

You could do this:
?time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m", ctodt(date+" "+time))
= "06/14/2014 08:20"

I don't think it works in an Alpha Export Operation.

It should.

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

Thanks G. I will try it out.
The export doesn't work though. The space goes walkabout.
It should, but it don't. (Ever heard that?)

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

I didn't try it, but the calc field shows the space.
At any rate, in the script I posted above, you could eliminate:
txt=arr.dump_properties("both")
and save the array to a text table directly. I put it there only for illustration.
You could turn this into a function.
I believe I posted a function in the past to convert dbf to csv.

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

arr[i].both=time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m",ctodt(arr[i].date+" "+arr[i].time))

Cool, thanks G.

Question and then I'll get out of your hair.

arr[i].both=time("MM/dd/yyyy 0h:0m",ctodt(arr[i].date+" "+arr[i].time))

Makes no difference how many spaces I add, but it fails in there are NO spaces. Probably means that ctodt() parses very accurately.

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

Works for me.

[Ted Giles]

Re: update to yield a space character

Alas not for me Dates.PNG

[G Gabriel]

Re: update to yield a space character

It is showing the date & time as desired. What's not working?