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abracadabra · Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:19 am Post subject: Date Comparisions in File-aid.

Hi,

I have the following field values in a FB sequential file.

03/11/2003
04/12/2006
04/12/2005
03/01/2006
03/01/2004
03/01/2005
03/11/2003

When I am trying to copy all records less than 03/01/2006 in file aid, the output file is returning only 2 records.

03/01/2004 and 03/01/2005.

I know this can be done through SORT but why is it failing through File Aid. It looks as if the month and day are becoming equal
_________________
Cheers!

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:51 am Post subject:

You can't compare dates using the dd/mm/yyyy format because it will compare dd, then mm and then yyyy. So the outcome can be determined by the dd values or mm values before even looking at the yyyy values. For example, when you compare 04/12/2005 to 03/01/2006, 04 is greater than 03 so 2005 vs 2006 doesn't matter. You need to use the yyyy/mm/dd format to compare dates correctly.
_________________
Frank Yaeger - DFSORT Development Team (IBM)
Specialties: JOINKEYS, FINDREP, WHEN=GROUP, ICETOOL, Symbols, Migration
DFSORT is on the Web at:
www.ibm.com/storage/dfsort

abracadabra · Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:23 am Post subject:

Thank You for your reply. However, when I am doing YYYYMMDD, would it still not just check YYYY first and then MM and then DD.

So if I have dates

2004/03/01
2005/06/02
2006/01/01
2006/03/02

and I want dates less than 2006/03/02. it will return only 2004/02/01 and 2005/06/02. Is that not correct. The date 2006/01/01 will still be skipped.
_________________
Cheers!

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 12:03 pm Post subject:

It will check yyyy, then mm and then dd. For 2006/01/01 vs 2006/03/02, yyyy is 2006 for both, so it will check mm and find that 01 is less than 03 and keep that record. Why do you think it would skip it?

I tried your yyyy/mm/dd input with this DFSORT statement: