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ricky_vegas
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Quote ricky_vegas Replybullet Topic: Bad Date Format String error
    Posted: 04 Jan 2008 at 10:50am
I have three fields: date_ordered, date_wanted, date_shipped. For all three the data type is char!
 
I need to calculate the days between date_wanted - date_ordered and date_shipped - date_ordered.
 
In Crystal XI I created three formulas @date_wanted (CDate({JC10.DATE_WANTED}), etc.
 
date_ordered and date_wanted are working just fine but date_shipped is giving me  a "Bad date format string" error. The only thing I can think about is that date_shipped has empty records. If this is the problem, how can I take care of it? In other words, if I haven't shipped one or more items how can I tell the system to give me the difference between date_wanted - date_ordered but not date_shipped - date_ordered?
 
thanks in advance.
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BrianBischof
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Quote BrianBischof Replybullet Posted: 06 Jan 2008 at 8:29pm
I would use the IsNull() function to test if the field is empty. If so, don't subtract the dates and instead just return 0 as the formula result.

I cover handling null values in Chapter 7 and I cover all the date functions in Chapter 6 of my book Crystal Reports Encyclopedia
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Lugh
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Quote Lugh Replybullet Posted: 07 Jan 2008 at 4:30am
Also check through your data for non-date values.  When I've worked with databases that store dates as text in the past, users have a distressing tendency to enter "TBD" or "ASAP."  You can use the IsDate function to test if the value is a date.


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