French Date

[izachar]

I am built a site that is in English and now I have to make it available in French. I am having problems with the date format. The first letter is capitalized and it should not and some of the months are spelled in English not french. Is there a system varable for it or will I have to hardcode a drop-down in French and pull it out of the DB ?

 

[Silvano]

try to use GetTimeZoneInfo() function; here is the example:

<CFOUTPUT>
The local date and time are #now()#.
</CFOUTPUT>

<CFSET info = GetTimeZoneInfo()>
<CFOUTPUT>
<P>Total offset in seconds is #info.utcTotalOffset#.</P>
<P>Offset in hours is #info.utcHourOffset#.</P>
<P>Offset in minutes minus the offset in hours is #info.utcMinuteOffset#.</P>
<P>Is Daylight Savings Time in effect? #info.isDSTOn#.</P>
</CFOUTPUT>

the info.utcHourOffset is returning the offset in hours of local time from Universal Coordinated Time (UTC); with that you can position the country in that span; I don't know what would be for France, but for example, I am in Seattle and Offset in hours here is 8; therefore, France might be 0 (which is same time zone as London);

now, with that you can use something like this to format you date:

<cfif info.utcHourOffset is 0> <!---or whatever is the value for France--->
<cfset date = DateFormat(now(), &quot;d mmmm yy&quot>
<cfset date = ListSetAt(date, 2, LCase(LisTGetAt(date, 2, &quot; &quot), &quot; &quot>
</cfif>


the new date output: 7 november 01


hope this help

Sylvano
dsylvano@hotmail.com

 

[izachar]

Thank you for the responce. I my problem is that in french May is Mai so when I use mmm in my date format it does not spell correctly. Also when I display full month then I have aproblem that in French month/day/year is day month (with no capital letter in front) year. As much as I know I can not force a month variable to not capitalize in the front.

 

[Silvano]

the code i have offered you here will determine if the France date format is needed to be displayed;
now you are asking that instead month/day/year, the date be displayed as day/month/year, right?
u can accomplish that by using different mask in the DateFormat() function;
instead
<cfset date = DateFormat(now(), &quot;d mmmm yy&quot>
use this
<cfset date = DateFormat(now(), &quot;mmmm d yy&quot>

the available masks for DateFormat() function:
mask
Set of characters that are used to show how ColdFusion should display the date:

d -- Day of the month as digits with no leading zero for single-digit days.
dd -- Day of the month as digits with a leading zero for single-digit days.
ddd -- Day of the week as a three-letter abbreviation.
dddd -- Day of the week as its full name.
m -- Month as digits with no leading zero for single-digit months.
mm -- Month as digits with a leading zero for single-digit months.
mmm -- Month as a three-letter abbreviation.
mmmm -- Month as its full name.
y -- Year as last two digits with no leading zero for years less than 10.
yy -- Year as last two digits with a leading zero for years less than 10.
yyyy -- Year represented by four digits.
gg -- Period/era string. Currently ignored, but reserved for future use.

here are few examples:
<CFSET todayDate = Now()>
<CFOUTPUT>
#DateFormat(todayDate)#<br>
#DateFormat(todayDate, &quot;mmm-dd-yyyy&quot#<br>
#DateFormat(todayDate, &quot;mmmm d, yyyy&quot#<br>
#DateFormat(todayDate, &quot;mm/dd/yyyy&quot#<br>
#DateFormat(todayDate, &quot;d-mmm-yyyy&quot#<br>
#DateFormat(todayDate, &quot;ddd, mmmm dd, yyyy&quot#<br>
#DateFormat(todayDate, &quot;d/m/yy&quot#<br>
</CFOUTPUT>


in short, the following code:
<cfset frenchMonths = &quot;janvier,f&eacute;vrier,marcher,avril,juin,juillet,ao&ucirc;t,septembre,octobre,novembre,d&eacute;cembre&quot;>

<cfset date = DateFormat(Now(), &quot;m d yy&quot>
<cfset fMonth = ListGetAt(frenchMonths, ListGetAt(date, 1, &quot; &quot)>
<cfset frenchDate = ListSetAt(date, 1, fMonth, &quot; &quot>

<cfoutput>#frenchDate#</cfoutput>

will give you this output:

décembre 8 01


ColdFusion has many functions to manipulate date an strings; to use database for something like french date formating would be simply uneffective; if you need coldfusion documentation with description of all ColdFusion funtions and tags go to:

http://www.allaire.com/documents/cf4/dochome.htm

Sylvano
dsylvano@hotmail.com