fmp17 Create Sunday records script

[john9210]

I’m trying to write a script that creates records for each Sunday in any two-month period. Below, the script creates records for January and February 2019.

It simply checks each day of the month to see if it is a Sunday and if so, it creates a record.

It does fine except that the second month portion of the script creates a record for the first Sunday in March! No doubt this is due to the fact that the Loop exits after 32 days. However it seems to me that since the DayOfWeek calculation is based $month2=2 (February) it should not result in a record with a March date. Is it necessary to make the loop dependent on the number of days in the month? I was hoping to avoid that additional complexity.

Or is there a simpler script do the job?

 

gYear = 2019

#CREATE RECORDS FOR FIRST MONTH

Set Variable [ $month1; Value:1 ]

Set Variable [ $day; Value:1 ]

Loop

If [ DayOfWeek ( Date($month1;$day;Schedule::gYear ))=1 ]

New Record/Request

Set Field [ Schedule::Date; Date($month1;$day;Schedule::gYear ) ]

Set Field [ Schedule::Flag; 1 ]

End If

Set Variable [ $day; Value:$day+1 ]

Exit Loop If [ $day=32 ]

End Loop

 

#CREATE RECORDS FOR SECOND MONTH

Set Variable [ $month2; Value:2 ]

Set Variable [ $day; Value:1 ]

Loop

If [ DayOfWeek ( Date($month2;$day;Schedule::gYear ))=1 ]

New Record/Request

Set Field [ Schedule::Date; Date($month2;$day;Schedule::gYear ) ]

Set Field [ Schedule::Flag; 1 ]

End If

Set Variable [ $day; Value:$day+1 ]

Exit Loop If [ $day=32 ]

End Loop

[rwoods]

You should base your loops on actual dates, rather than just an index number. Why not set a variable $date to

$date = GetAsDate ( Date ($month1, 1, gYear ) )

Then have a single loop that increments $startDate by one each time, tests if it is a Sunday, does it's creation if it is, and exits the loop when

Month($date) = $month1 + 2 

(i.e. it has reached the month that is two months after the start month). Remember to exit the loop before testing whether that last date is a Sunday.

There are probably better ways to do this anyway, like finding the first date that is a Sunday and then just adding 7 to it repeatedly to find subsequent Sundays, and stopping when you reach Month 3.

 

Hope this helps.

[comment]

8 hours ago, rwoods said:

$date = GetAsDate ( Date ($month1, 1, gYear ) )

Why do you find it necessary to convert a date to date?

 

8 hours ago, rwoods said:

exits the loop when

Month($date) = $month1 + 2 

(i.e. it has reached the month that is two months after the start month).

The problem with this method is that when the requested period is November-December, the value of $month1 will be 11. And that means the loop will never exit, because Month($date) will never return 13.

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by comment

[comment]

4 hours ago, john9210 said:

I’m trying to write a script that creates records for each Sunday in any two-month period.

Putting aside for a moment the unnecessary complexity of your script, one cannot help wondering:

1. Why is it necessary to pre-create records for days on which nothing of interest has yet happened?

2. Supposing it is necessary, why not create records for all Sundays from now till doomsday (doomsday in Filemaker is December 31, 4000, so that would make around 100k records) and be done with it?

 

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by comment

[comment]

Back to your script: the reason why your method fails is that the Date() function happily rolls over the month and the year. So for example:

Date ( 2 ; 32 ; 2019 )

returns March 4 , 2019 and similarly:

Date (12 ; 32 ; 2019 )

returns January 1, 2020. This is what makes the Date() function such a powerful tool in date calculations.

 

Now, I would suggest you simplify your script to something like (untested):

Set Variable [ $startDate; Value: Date ( Get(ScriptParameter) ; 1 ; Schedule::gYear ) ]
Set Variable [ $endDate; Value: Date ( Get(ScriptParameter) + 2 ; 0 ; Schedule::gYear ) ]
Loop
  Exit Loop If [ $startDate > endDate ]
  If [ DayOfWeek ( $startDate ) = 1 ]
    New Record/Request
    Set Field [ Schedule::Date; $startDate ]
    Set Field [ Schedule::Flag; 1 ]
  End If
  Set Variable [ $startDate; Value:$startDate + 1 ]
End Loop
Commit Records[]

Calling  this script with a parameter of 5 should create a record for every Sunday in the period of May - June of the year in gYear.

Note that there is no checking for duplicates. Calling the script twice with the same parameter could result in having 2 records for each Sunday in the given range.

 

7 hours ago, rwoods said:

There are probably better ways to do this anyway, like finding the first date that is a Sunday

Right. And that would go something like (again, untested):

Set Variable [ $startDate; Value: Let ( 
day1 = Date ( Get(ScriptParameter) ; 1 ; Schedule::gYear ) ;
;
day1 + Mod ( 1 - DayofWeek ( day1 ) ; 7 )
) ]
Set Variable [ $endDate; Value: Date ( Get(ScriptParameter) + 2 ; 0 ; Schedule::gYear ) ]
Loop
  Exit Loop If [ $startDate > endDate ]
  New Record/Request
  Set Field [ Schedule::Date; $startDate ]
  Set Field [ Schedule::Flag; 1 ]
  Set Variable [ $startDate; Value:$startDate + 7 ]
End Loop
Commit Records[]

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by comment

[rwoods]

@comment Well, I'm not 100% sure how the implicit type-casting works with FM variables, so I was just ramming home the point to FileMaker that this was definitely a date!

[comment]

@rwoods

The result of Date() is date. The result of GetAsDate() is also date. If type-casting works with the data type returned by the calculation, then it must work the same for both. If it doesn't, then no amount of repeating the message will help.

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by comment