Hello listers,

A strange error came up when formating a date. See this code: writeln(formatdatetime('dd/mm/YYYY', now));
The answer should be: 31/01/2012
The answer was: 31-01-2012
I did one test else:
writeln(formatdatetime('dd$mm$YYYY', now));
The answer was: 31$01$2012
Yes, the problem seems to be related to the backslash. DefaultFormatSettings.DateSeparator := '/';
writeln(formatdatetime('dd/mm/YYYY', now));
The answer was: 31/01/2012
Right! That's the answer. But it was necessary to setup the settings manually.
The test was done with Freepascal 2.4.4 and Ubuntu 10.10. Does someone know what is my mistake?
Regards,
Luciano

errrm1... that's not a 'back slash'... that's a "forward" slash.. aka just a plain slash... "back slash" leans backwards (ie: top to the left)...

errrm2: FP 2.6.0 is the current release... unless i'm highly mistaken... but still, see higher above ;)

There is no mistake, all is as it should be.

In the format string for FormatDateTime, a / means 'use the date separator of the RTL'.

By default, on linux the RTL date separator is the '-' character.

If you want to initialize the RTL locale settings with the system settings, just put 'clocale' as one of the first units in your uses clause. It will set all necessary constants.

if you want an actual / character in your output, you should do a

writeln(formatdatetime('dd"/"mm"/"YYYY', now));

i.e. enclose the special character in double quotes.

Michael.

2012/2/1 Michael Van Canneyt :

o.o'

Very nice explanation. Thank you! :)

Oh! Your correction is really good and welcome. Becouse of a Leber Congenital Amaurosis, I became blind when I was a child. As a consequence, nowadays, for me, slashes and backslashes are only a word spoken by the screen reader. It's really curious how brains can work differrently.

When people know you are blind, they don't use to make this kind of comment. I am lucky becouse you don't know it! Yes, if the shape of slashes and backslashes were similar to a triangle or a castle, it wouldn't matter for my daily life. In spite of this, it's really intersting to know how things exist in the visual world.

Even screen readers are worried in supplying some visual information. NVDA, the screen reader I currently use, can speak the RGB code on a particular point. Other screen readers can be more: they can also speak the name of the color. Some time ago, using this feature, I knew a color called "brick". Brick as a color? It's really intersting. Yes, this information is not very important in my life, but at the point of view of culture, of the visual culture, it's really curious.

For these reasons, I like Pascal intensively. The two first screen readers, these technological wonder, I have been using, they are developed in Pascal: Dosvox and Virtual Vision, both conceived by brazilian developers.

Welll, well, let me stop the message. If I say something more off topic, I will be likely talking about planets and galaxes!

Thank you very much!

Regards,

Luciano

Oh! Very well! I am blind, for me, slashes and backslashes are only words spoken by the screen reader. The worst is I listen "barra" and "barra invertida", the portuguese correspondent words. You can imagine: I don't see slashes and I listen differently. The chance of mistake is very high! But fortunately, I have a good friend who corrects me! One bilion of corrections else and I will be perfect!

Thank you very much!