Question

Crystal Reports 11 - how to convert a string date into an age value...

Asked by: djhc50

Hello,

I have a formula field converting my date of birth field (string) from yyyymmdd into mm/dd/yyyy.  I am now trying to calculate the person's age based on that string value, but am having some trouble doing so because I do not have a datetime field (only a string date of birth field that sometimes has nulls etc). Needless to say, I am receiving some error messages saying "Bad Date Format String".

I looked for various snippets of code on the net for ideas:

----------
DateVar Birth:= {person.date_of_birth};   // Replace this with your field for Date Of Birth
DateVar Ann := CurrentDate;  // Replace this with CurrentDate to get their age as of the time of the report
                                                            //or the date field of an event to get their age as of the time of that event.
if (Month(Ann) * 100) + Day (Ann) >=(Month(Birth) *100) + Day (Birth)
then Year (Ann) - Year(Birth)
else Year (Ann) - Year(Birth) -1
----------
or
----------
NumberVar DoBVar := IIF((100 * MONTH({?Target_Date}) + DAY({?Target_Date})) < (100 * MONTH({Member.DoB}) + DAY({Member.DoB})), 1, 0);
DATEDIFF("yyyy",{Member.DoB},{?Target_Date}) - DobVar
----------
but am having no luck - always getting the same format error.

Using CDate({table.dob}) hasnt worked for some reason - I also get the "Bad Date Format String" as well.  Any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks in advance!

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Asked On
2009-08-28 at 12:55:27ID24690954
Tags

Crystal Reports 11 String to Date Conversion

Topic

Crystal Reports Software

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: mlmccPosted on 2009-08-28 at 19:27:11ID: 25212784

Here is a fromula that does the caclulation
http://www.kenhamady.com/form06.shtml

To convert your date try

If IsNull({DateField}) then
    CurrentDate
Else
    DAte(Val(Left(DateField},4)),Val(Mid({DateField},5,2)),Val(Right({DateField},2)))

mlmcc

 

by: James0628Posted on 2009-08-28 at 19:51:15ID: 25212827

mlmcc,

 The first formula he posted is the one from that page.


 djhc50,

 You have to determine what invalid date values you're getting and how you want to handle them.  If the only invalid value is null and you want to handle that by using today's date instead, something like the formula that mlmcc posted should work.  You could, for example, create a formula like that and then replace {person.date_of_birth} in the first formula you posted with the name of that new formula.

 James

 

by: mlmccPosted on 2009-08-28 at 20:32:37ID: 25212917

I think th einvalid date is from the format of the string.  

According to the help from Crystal CDate wants date strings to be like 20 Dec 1999

You can use the IsDate function to check the string to see if it is a date that Crystal recognizes.

If IsNull({DateField}) then
    CurrentDate
Else If Not IsDate({DateField}) then
    CurrentDate
Else
    DAte(Val(Left(DateField},4)),Val(Mid({DateField},5,2)),Val(Right({DateField},2)))

James
I realized that after I posted the comment

mlmcc

 

by: James0628Posted on 2009-08-29 at 02:34:01ID: 25213486

> According to the help from Crystal CDate
 > wants date strings to be like 20 Dec 1999

 Actually, the CR 10 Help for CDate says "many formats are supported for the string".  For example, CDate ("08/11/2009") works fine for me.

 James

 

by: djhc50Posted on 2009-08-29 at 06:59:55ID: 25214069

Thanks for the responses you both - I appreciate it - I will try them out and see what I get on my data set, and reply.

Thanks again!

 

by: djhc50Posted on 2009-08-31 at 10:03:10ID: 31621909

Thanks to you both for the help!

 

by: James0628Posted on 2009-08-31 at 18:54:34ID: 25228029

You're welcome.  Glad I could help.

 James

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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