Hello Jasen,

    On Saturday October 26 2002 at 18:36,
    Jasen Betts [3:640/531.42] wrote to Gerald Miller,
    about:  System check ???

 JB>>> the number is 8432 I'm not fussy about the separartor but the
 JB>>> computer uses / codepage is 437 country is 61 (Australia)

 GM>> Thank you.  I now see that I should have asked you the format of
 GM>> the date data, ie, DD.MM.YY (German); MM-DD-YY
 GM>> (American/Canadian); YY/MM/DD (Australia ???)... ??

 JB>   DD/MM/YY  (same as UK (I think) same field order as Europe.)

Thanks.

 JB>>> Now that I know to edit the data file into aus format it's no
 JB>>> big problem.

 GM>> I'm trying to find a way to automatically convert the data file
 GM>> to whatever date format is currently being used.  I've found two
 GM>> different ways to accomplish this...

 JB> what 4dos version are you targeting? the current version supports
 JB> different formats in %{at}makedate, but not in %{at}date (strange omission)

I'm not targeting any particular 4dos version specifically, but the version
that I'm currently using is 6.02B.  Hopefully, the newer versions will
still perform the batch.  I have to wonder if JPSoft purposely omitted
support for different formats in %{at}date...  To maintain backward
compatibility???

 GM>> I'm not familiar with the ISO format....

 JB>  echo
 JB> %{at}replace[2,d,%{at}replace[20,yy,%{at}replace[1,m,%{at}makedate[14936,4]]]]
 JB>                                                             /\
 JB> :)                                                          ||

In your previous message, you had omitted the ",4" at the end,
but it still worked on my system. (???) Help me out and tell me how you
achieved the numbers "14936,4" and what is their significance?

I've made more revisions.  I've added another field to the DAT file -
"DAYS LEFT" and added %{at}date[01/02/03] to the header...  The DAT
file now looks like:

=== *** ===
PATH\PROGRAM TO RUN                      ³AFTER³        ³        ³DAYS ³
                                         ³ DAYS³LAST RUN³NEXT RUN³ LEFT³ASK
ÄÄÄÄ 8402 ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÅMM-DD-YYÅMM-DD-YYÅÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄ
call STEP_0.BTM                          ³7    ³10-20-02³00-00-00³0    ³N
=== *** ===

I plan on using the "8402" field to perform the data file conversion, ie:

=== *** ===
PATH\PROGRAM TO RUN                      ³AFTER³        ³        ³DAYS ³
                                         ³ DAYS³LAST RUN³NEXT RUN³ LEFT³ASK
ÄÄÄÄ 8432 ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÅDD-MM-YYÅDD-MM-YYÅÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄ
call STEP_0.BTM                          ³7    ³20-10-02³00-00-00³0    ³N
=== *** ===

Right now, my batch file is a "bloody" mess - commented commands
that didn't perform as expected, comments of what I was trying to
accomplish, routines commented out as I try alternatives....  This may take
a while. :)

           Cheers ... Gerald

--- GoldED+/386 v1.1.5-21011