On 5/21/06 12:38 PM, "Duane L. Mitchell" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On 5/19/06 9:45 PM  John Baxter  [log in to unmask]  said:
>  
>> Where does the reference date come from?
> 
> I use the calculation to create a unique number that gets pasted into a Word
> document. This number then is a unique referenece number for that document.
> I use the following date as a reference which is subtracted from the current
> date:
> 
> property pReferenceDate : date "Wednesday, January 1, 2003 12:00:01 AM"
> 
> This date was chosen because it was the date this organization, a law firm,
> opened for business and using this date resulted in a number that is not too
> many digits in length...for awhile anyway.
> 
> It's been working fine for over 3 years.


As an alternative to the example I gave (with emendation from Nigel), the
following should work for almost most computers, using either m/d/y or d/m/y
International Date & Time formats (leading zeroes or not) are used , but not
for formats like Swedish that use yyyy-mm-dd :


property pReferenceDate : "1/1/2003 00:00:01"


set pReferenceDate to date pReferenceDate


Then compile and save the script just before sending it off to others
_without running it_. Running it will re-save pReferenceDate as a date
object. So you'd be better off doing it like this:



property pRefDate : "1/1/2003 00:00:01"


set pReferenceDate to date pRefDate



You'd avoid the problem that way, even if you forget to re-compile and save
on future updates. But you'll still run into trouble if any of your users do
use the yyyy-mm-dd or similar year-first short date format on their
computers. You'd need to make a special version for them. Or use the other
(current date) method.

-- 
Paul Berkowitz