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It may seem strange that in the present context where the future of MapBasic applications is rather threatened by all the rumours of the abandonment of MapInfo.COM to the profit of a NET version incompatible with MB I am still writing MB applications. You have to imagine that I foresee despite all those rumours there will always be a niche for the “old” users, that there are still pressing need for new tools, that if I do not consider at my “age” learning a new language, practicing an old one has many “mental” benefits and brings more immediate satisfactions (since I accepted there was no $ rewards to expect for that activity). After that spiel some may take as a “testament” but is more like an act of faith, here is what I can offer you.
DateStringConvertor reads in dates as strings in different formats and convert then in strings respecting certain rules (only digits, leading 0 present, sequences DMY, MDY or YDA, separator space, - / .). There are probably 2 main reasons for using it: to convert “foreign” entries to a “standard” format or to prepare non conformant date formats to one that can be used by MI for converting date strings to date variable. MI allows only two kinds of format in the stringtodate() function, “US” and “local”, the last one being defined by the particular Windows regional settings. One could of course play with those settings to match the date input format but it seems rather awkward and dangerous. DateStringConvertor avoids that and allows for two different “spellings” for month names that the user can alter (in the INI file, with all the language strings as that app is Multi Lingual Compatible) to match his needs
You will find it at www.paris-pc-gis.com/download.htm in the MLC project.
Hoping that app could be of help to some of you, like it has been to Terry MacDonnell (uk) who has offered me the most stimulating support to develop it.
Jacques Paris |
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