AppleScript – Date Format and Calculation in AppleScript

applescripttime

I work with three date format,

1.04/18/2015 (PS my system date is not the same but DD/MM/YY)

2.June 2nd, 2012 but converted to the 1st format by code bellow

3.Saturday 24 March 2018 (current date)

I just created the script bellow to convert both date in the same format:

set creationDate to "March 23rd, 2018"
set CreationDay to ""
set Creationmonth to ""
set Creationyear to ""


if creationDate contains "1st" then
    set CreationDay to "1"
end if
if creationDate contains "2nd" then
    set CreationDay to "2"
end if
if creationDate contains "3rd" then
    set CreationDay to "3"
end if
if creationDate contains "4th" then
    set CreationDay to "4"
end if
if creationDate contains "5th" then
    set CreationDay to "5"
end if
if creationDate contains "6th" then
    set CreationDay to "6"
end if
if creationDate contains "7th" then
    set CreationDay to "7"
end if
if creationDate contains "8th" then
    set CreationDay to "8"
end if
if creationDate contains "9th" then
    set CreationDay to "9"
end if
if creationDate contains "10th" then
    set CreationDay to "10"
end if
if creationDate contains "11th" then
    set CreationDay to "11"
end if
if creationDate contains "12th" then
    set CreationDay to "12"
end if
if creationDate contains "13th" then
    set CreationDay to "13"
end if
if creationDate contains "14th" then
    set CreationDay to "14"
end if
if creationDate contains "15th" then
    set CreationDay to "15"
end if
if creationDate contains "16th" then
    set CreationDay to "16"
end if
if creationDate contains "17th" then
    set CreationDay to "17"
end if
if creationDate contains "18th" then
    set CreationDay to "18"
end if
if creationDate contains "19th" then
    set CreationDay to "19"
end if
if creationDate contains "20th" then
    set CreationDay to "20"
end if
if creationDate contains "21st" then
    set CreationDay to "21"
end if
if creationDate contains "22nd" then
    set CreationDay to "22"
end if
if creationDate contains "23rd" then
    set CreationDay to "23"
end if
if creationDate contains "24th" then
    set CreationDay to "24"
end if
if creationDate contains "25th" then
    set CreationDay to "25"
end if
if creationDate contains "26th" then
    set CreationDay to "26"
end if
if creationDate contains "27th" then
    set CreationDay to "27"
end if
if creationDate contains "28th" then
    set CreationDay to "28"
end if
if creationDate contains "29th" then
    set CreationDay to "29"
end if
if creationDate contains "30th" then
    set CreationDay to "30"
end if
if creationDate contains "31st" then
    set CreationDay to "31"
end if

if creationDate contains "2018" then
    set Creationyear to "2018"
end if
if creationDate contains "2017" then
    set Creationyear to "2017"
end if
if creationDate contains "2016" then
    set Creationyear to "2016"
end if
if creationDate contains "2015" then
    set Creationyear to "2015"
end if
if creationDate contains "2014" then
    set Creationyear to "2014"
end if
if creationDate contains "2013" then
    set Creationyear to "2013"
end if
if creationDate contains "2012" then
    set Creationyear to "2012"
end if
if creationDate contains "2011" then
    set Creationyear to "2011"
end if
if creationDate contains "2010" then
    set Creationyear to "2010"
end if
if creationDate contains "2009" then
    set Creationyear to "2009"
end if
if creationDate contains "2008" then
    set Creationyear to "2008"
end if
if creationDate contains "2007" then
    set Creationyear to "2007"
end if
if creationDate contains "2006" then
    set Creationyear to "2006"
end if
if creationDate contains "2005" then
    set Creationyear to "2005"
end if
if creationDate contains "2004" then
    set Creationyear to "2004"
end if
if creationDate contains "2003" then
    set Creationyear to "2003"
end if


if creationDate contains "January" then
    set Creationmonth to "01"
end if
if creationDate contains "February" then
    set Creationmonth to "02"
end if
if creationDate contains "March" then
    set Creationmonth to "03"
end if
if creationDate contains "April" then
    set Creationmonth to "04"
end if
if creationDate contains "May" then
    set Creationmonth to "05"
end if
if creationDate contains "June" then
    set Creationmonth to "06"
end if
if creationDate contains "July" then
    set Creationmonth to "07"
end if
if creationDate contains "Agust" then
    set Creationmonth to "08"
end if
if creationDate contains "September" then
    set Creationmonth to "09"
end if
if creationDate contains "October" then
    set Creationmonth to "10"
end if
if creationDate contains "November" then
    set Creationmonth to "11"
end if
if creationDate contains "December" then
    set Creationmonth to "12"
end if


set CreationfinalDate to CreationDay & "/" & Creationmonth & "/" & Creationyear
return CreationfinalDate

Question 1: How can I convert date number 3 (which is the current date) to the same format

(I know how to return as a string but not otherwise)

set myDate to date string of (current date)

Question 2: can I create a script to tell me if the difference between date 2 and date 3 are within 60 days or outside 60 days?

Best Answer

Question 1: Rather than going through the trouble of obtaining the current date only to convert it to another format, you can obtain it in the right format straight away with a bash command:

    do shell script "date +'%m/%d/%Y'"
        --> 03/24/2018

Question 2: First, reformat the date into that which your system can recognise. In your case (and mine), it's dd/mm/yyyy:

    set [M, ordinal, Y] to the words of "June 2nd, 2012"

    set the text item delimiters to {"st", "nd", "rd", "th"}
    set cardinal to (first text item of ordinal) --> "2"
    set cardinal to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & cardinal) --> "02"

    set the text item delimiters to space
    set date_string to {M, cardinal, Y} as text

    -- date -j -f '%B %d %Y' 'June 02 2012' +'%d/%m/%Y'
    set command to {¬
        "date -j -f '%B %d %Y'", ¬
        quoted form of the date_string, ¬
        "+'%d/%m/%Y'"}

    do shell script (command as text) --> "02/06/2012"

Then subtract one date from the current date, and divide by days to get the number of days between the two dates:

    ((current date) - (date result)) / days
        --> 2121.627

PS. You can use that same shell command to convert the date into your first format, mm/dd/yyyy, simply by switching %d and %m at the end of the command string.

ADDENDUM:

I thought I'd also show you how to convert the third date string into your desired format using pure AppleScript. It can be done rather quite elegantly, actually:

    set today to "Saturday 24 March 2018"

    set [_day, _month, _year] to [day, month, year] of date today
        --> {24, March, 2018}

    set _month to _month * 1 --> 3
    set _month to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _month) --> "03"

    set the text item delimiters to "/"
    return {_month, _day, _year} as string
        --> "03/24/2018"

Note to other users: The code in this addendum may or may not work for you, depending on your system settings. AppleScript is notoriously fussy about what it will and will not recognise as a date string. The OP and I appear to have similar or identical Language & Region date settings, which allows the variable today to be interpreted correctly as a date by AppleScript, whilst the same code running on a different system would throw an error.

To adapt the code here for use on your own system, first run the command get date string of (current date) to get a preview of the date format used by your system, then change the variable declaration for today to match. Alternatively, set the variable today to the date string of (current date).

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