Replace and Mid functions conflict 2

[DeltaTech]

Hi
Was wondering if there is some sort of conflict between the Replace and Mid functions.
Used by itself, the Mid function works fine, but when used after a Replace function call, I get the following error:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0005'
Invalid procedure call or argument: 'Mid'

Any thoughts?

 

[DotNetGnat]

can you show us some code...

null strings prodecure error when you use Replace() or Mid() functions...

show us what you are trying to do...


-DNG

 

[DotNetGnat]

i meant to say

null strings prodecure produce error when you use Replace() or Mid() functions...

-DNG

 

[DeltaTech]

Hi DNG

This is my code:

'Retrieve data from form 
1. dTempDate = Request.Form("MessageDate")
2. sMessageFrom = Request.Form("MessageFrom")

'Replace any occurences of ' and " with ¢ and £ 
3. sMessageFrom = Replace(sMessageFrom, Chr(34), Chr(162))
4. sMessageFrom = Replace(sMessageFrom, Chr(39), Chr(163)) 

'Extract the day, month and year from MessageDate 
5. dDay = Mid(dTempDate, 1, Instr(1,dTempDate,"/")-1)
6. dTempDate = Mid(dTempDate, Instr(1,dTempDate,"/")+1)
7. dMonth = Mid(dTempDate, 1, Instr(1,dTempDate,"/")-1) 
8. dTempDate = Mid(dTempDate, Instr(1,dTempDate,"/")+1)
9. dYear = dTempDate

An error occurs on the 5th line.

Essentially, I am trying to extract the date from the form which is entered in the dd/mm/yyyy format and save it in mm/dd/yyyy format.

The server is a hosted and I cannot change the regional settings so I have to programmatically manipulate the date both while saving and displaying.

If I don't do that, then I have problems with dates entered like 03/08/2005 (dd/mm/yyyy) which when saved is later intepreted as 8 Mar 2005 instead of 3 Aug 2005.

I can't think of any other way to overcome this date problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[DotNetGnat]

if you are sure that your input dates are always in the following format...dd/mm/yyyy

then you can just do this...

<%
dTempDate="03/08/2005"

dDay=Mid(dTempDate,1,2)


dMonth=Mid(dTempDate,4,2)
dYear=Mid(dTempDate,7,4)

response.write dMonth&"/"&dDay&"/"&dYear
%>

here...the dates entered by the user all always like this 03/08/2005, the above obviously fails if the input looks like this...3/8/2005

i was just making it simple for you if the input is always the same...if not we can come up with something like more dynamic using string functions...

-DNG

 

[DotNetGnat]

here is the code for dynamically changing depending on the user input...

<%
dTempDate="03/08/2005"
'dTempDate="3/8/2005"

firstpos=Instr(dTempDate,"/")

secondpos=Instrrev(dTempDate,"/")

dDay=Left(dTempDate,firstpos-1)

dMonth=Mid(dTempDate,firstpos+1,secondpos-firstpos-1)

dyear=Right(dTempDate,4)

response.write dMonth&"/"&dDay&"/"&dYear
%>

try with both dTempDate values...post back if you have any questions...

-DNG

 

[DeltaTech]

Hi DNG
Thanks for the quick feedback.
I anticipate that the first option will still generate an error because of the Mid function and the uncertainty of the user entered date format dd/mm/yyyy, d/m/yy, etc.
I am going to try out the second option of extracting the dates and will certainly give my feedback on it.

 

[DotNetGnat]

if you also have a chance that user can enter yy instead of yyyy then you need this:

<%
dTempDate="3/8/05"

firstpos=Instr(dTempDate,"/")

secondpos=Instrrev(dTempDate,"/")

dDay=Left(dTempDate,firstpos-1)

dMonth=Mid(dTempDate,firstpos+1,secondpos-firstpos-1)


[red]dYear=Right(dTempDate,len(dTempDate)-secondpos)[/red]

response.write dMonth&"/"&dDay&"/"&dYear
%>

-DNG

 

[damber]

Couple of other alternatives:

ARRAY METHOD:
dim sDateString: sDateString = "20/12/2005"  'dd/mm/yyyy'
dim aDateParts: aDateParts = split(sDateString, "/")  'can change to "-" etc
dim sNewDate

if ubound(aDateParts) = 2 then
   sNewDate = aDateParts(1) & "/" & aDateParts(0) & "/" & sDateParts(2)
else
   ... tell the user there's a problem etc...
end if

DATE FUNCTIONS:
   dim sDateString: sDateString = "25/11/2005" 'dd/mm/yyyy'
   dim dDate
   if isdate(sDateString) then
      dDate = cdate(sDateString)
      sNewDate = Month(dDate) & "/" & Day(dDate) & "/" & Year(dDate)
   else
      .... tell the user etc..
   end if

You can then use these in a function which you use when sending/receiving date info from the database.

you can also use the session.LCID, but this get's fiddly and can be easily confusing for supporting etc.

But it all works - a matter of preference really.

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[DotNetGnat]

yes...i was sure there are many other ways of achieveing the same thing...but i always try to keep the things simple...

-DNG

 

[DeltaTech]

Hi damber
Thank you for the helpful post.
I must apologise to both you and DNG though.
In actual fact, there is no conflict. The problem was in that the Date variable was empty, and I had not coded to catch this problem. So when it came to the Mid function, an error was generated.
Sometimes we look in the wrong places, although I do wish ASP generated more friendly error messages.
I did learn something new from the both of you though, and sincerely appreciate your willingness to help.
Thanks again.

 

[DotNetGnat]

check out my first post in this thread...thats what i suspected...anyways glad to be of help...

-DNG