Code snippet – DateClass

Here is a small Lotusscript class I wrote some years ago. I use it in a number of other classes where I need to use date functionality of different kind. For example, I have a class that communicates with a FoxPro database, using a COM object. Some of the methods in that class uses XML while other just pass a few arguments to the COM object. The COM object expects the date values to be in ISO 8601 format (yyyy-mm-dd). In addition, sometimes the date comes from a field in a Notes document where they usually are stored in US format (mm/dd/yyyy), sometimes it is the current date.

So I decided to create a this class to just make the code cleaner and to avoid having to do the same conversions over and over again. This class can of course be extended with more functionality if you like.

I simply put the class in a script library called “Class.Date” and then use that script library in my other classes or agents.

Class DateClass 
  Private dt As NotesDateTime	
  Public ErrorMsg As String

  Public Sub New(value As Variant)
    Dim datestring As String
    ' *** Check what data type was passed and take actions.
    ' *** If value is blank or Nothing, use today's date.
    Select Case Typename(value)		
      Case "EMPTY" : datestring = Format$(Today(),"Short Date")
      Case "STRING" : 
        If Fulltrim(value) = "" Then
          datestring = Format$(Today(),"Short Date")
        Else
          datestring = value
        End If
      Case "DATE" : datestring = Cstr(value)
    End Select
    ' *** Also check that the value is a valid date
    If Isdate(datestring) = False Then
      ErrorMsg = "Class.Date:New() - '" & datestring & "' received is not a valid date."
      Set dt = Nothing
      Exit Sub
    End If
    ErrorMsg = ""
    Set dt = New NotesDateTime(datestring)	
  End Sub
	
  Public Function DateOnly As String
    ' *** Return date-part only, in format selected by the system
    DateOnly = dt.DateOnly		
  End Function

  Public Function DateOnlyISO As String
    ' *** Return date-part only, in ISO 8601 (big endian) standard format
    DateOnlyISO = Format$(dt.dateOnly,"yyyy-mm-dd")
  End Function
	
  Public Function DateOnlyUS As String
    ' *** Return date-part only, in US (middle-endian) format
    DateOnlyUS = Format$(dt.dateOnly,"mm/dd/yyyy")
  End Function

End Class

And this is how I use the class, this is the first few lines of a function in another script library:

Public Function GetPolicyData(Byval policynumber As String, Byval lossdate As Variant) As Integer
  Dim DoL As DateClass
  Dim result As Integer
  Set DoL = New DateClass(lossdate)
  If DoL Is Nothing Then
   '*** Display message, including error message from DateTime class
    MsgBox = |Failed to initialize New DateTimeClass with LossDate "| & _
    lossdate & |". | & DoL.ErrorMsg  
    Exit Function
  End If
  '*** Call COM object with policy number and date of loss in ISO 8601 format
  result = object.GetPolicyData(policynumber, DOL.DateOnlyISO())
  ...

There you have it. Easy, isn’t it?