FWD » Core Development » Base Language

Found a different behaviour between 4GL and FWD in the following test case:

def var date1 as datetime-tz.

date1 = DATETIME-TZ(STRING(TODAY) + " 09:10:00.000-0").

message QUOTER(date1).

Output in 4GL:

09/09/2025 09:10:00.000+00:00

Output put in FWD:

09/09/2025

This happens because the character.quoterWorker does not take into consideration the datetime and datetime-tz types.

I did not notice Constantin is the reviewer already, and made review myself.

Eduard Soltan wrote:

Committed on 10538a, rev. 16154.

I suppose the revision is 16155.

Test Example¶

I've tested the change on the following example:

SESSION:SET-NUMERIC-FORMAT(",",".").
OUTPUT TO "out.txt".

DEFINE VARIABLE d AS DATE.
d = TODAY.
MESSAGE QUOTER(d).

DEFINE VARIABLE dt AS DATETIME.
dt = TODAY.
MESSAGE QUOTER(dt).

DEFINE VARIABLE dttz AS DATETIME-TZ.
dttz = TODAY.
MESSAGE QUOTER(dttz).

And the results match those for OE.

Issue¶

For date formats other than mdy, the date formatting is incorrect.

Consider the following modified example, where the date format is now ymd:

SESSION:SET-NUMERIC-FORMAT(",",".").
SESSION:DATE-FORMAT = 'ymd'.

OUTPUT TO "out.txt".

DEFINE VARIABLE d AS DATE.
d = TODAY.
MESSAGE STRING(d, "99/99/9999").
MESSAGE QUOTER(d).

DEFINE VARIABLE dt AS DATETIME.
dt = TODAY.
MESSAGE QUOTER(dt).

DEFINE VARIABLE dttz AS DATETIME-TZ.
dttz = TODAY.
MESSAGE QUOTER(dttz).

QUOTER(d) returns "25/09/09" instead of the expected "2025/09/09". Note that STRING(d, "99/99/9999") works correctly and results in 2025/09/09.

Other Notes¶

• I think the change description is not perfectly clear. Something like: fixed: format "99/99/9999" was used also to format datetime and datetime-tz values.
• I think the line does not look nice:
  

           else if (var instanceof date && !(var instanceof datetime || var instanceof datetimetz))
  

  
  Something like this is more clear:
  

           else if ("date".equals(var.getTypeName()))
  

• Also, the cast to the date here is not necessary:
  

              date dateVar = (date) var;
              sb.append(dateVar.toString("99/99/9999"));
  

  
  and the code may look like this:
  

              sb.append(var.toString("99/99/9999"));
  

Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:

QUOTER(d) returns "25/09/09" instead of the expected "2025/09/09". Note that STRING(d, "99/99/9999") works correctly and results in 2025/09/09.

This is when you use toStringMessage method to format date variables, instead of toString("99/99/9999")?

Committed review issues on 10538a, rev. 16156.