end of month calculation

[hugheskbh]

Can someone help me calculate the end of month date in a calendar month in cobol?

 

[slade]

Hi Hugh,

If you know how to define a table in cobol and you know the rule "Thirty days hath Sept..." and you know month 1 is JAN, month 2 is Feb, etc., you should be able to solve your problem. Was this a big enough hint?

Regards, Jack.

 

[MarcLodge]

Hi Hugh,
If you fancy learning a few of the slightly more unusual functions that Cobol has, you could use the DATE-OF-INTEGER and INTEGER-OF-DATE functions to achieve this. Let's suppose that you want to know the last date of the last day in February next year. You could:
a)Set a field with the value 01-03-2003
b)Use the INTEGER-OF-DATE function to give you a number, and then subtract 1 from that number.
c)Use the DATE-OF-INTEGER function to get you back the last day in February.

OK, I'll admit that this is a little on the esoteric side, but it will work, and will give you an insight into some of the less used features in Cobol.

Marc

 

[Dimandja]

Marc,

You forgot to mention that you were using the europeen date format dd-mm-yyyy - as opposed to the american date format mm-dd-yyyy.

Dimandja

 

[slade]

Marc,

Your post reminded me that I forgot to mention to Hugh that he has to test the year for leap year and add 1 to the Feb days in the table.

Hugh,

It's a little more than dividing by 4. Let us know how far you've gotten. We'll be happy to help you from there if you get stuck.


Regards, Jack.

 

[CliveC]

I put out some sample code in a FAQ which implements the method suggested by Marc. It could easily be adapted for your purpose. Clive

http://tubularity.com

 

[slade]

The FUNCTION method for finding the # of days in a month (i.e., the last day of the month) is ok for 1 or 2 or a handful of dates. If you plan to use it for each date in a record of an IP file, the performance hit may argue against it.

Regards, Jack.