Question

I am using ColdFusion 9.0.1 and some database that I cannot change.

I am accessing a database that stores a date as an eight digit numeric with zero decimal places like this:

YYYYMMDD

I need to be able to read the date, add and subtract days from a date, and create new dates. I am looking for a ColdFusion solution to efficiently (not much code) to convert the date to our standard format, which is

MM/DD/YYYY

And then convert it back into the database’s format for saving.

I need to code this in such a way that non-ColdFusion programmers can easily read this and use it, copy and modify it for other functions (such as adding a day to a date). So, I am not looking for the most least amount of code, but efficient and readable code.

Can you suggest anything that would make this code block more flexible, readable, or more efficient (less code)?

<cfscript>

// FORMAT DB DATE FOR BROWSER
DateFromDB = "20111116";
DatedToBrowser = createBrowserDate(DateFromDB);
writeOutput(DatedToBrowser);

function createBrowserDate(ThisDate) {
    ThisYear = left(ThisDate, 4); 
    ThisMonth = mid(ThisDate, 4, 2);
    ThisDay = right(ThisDate, 2);
    NewDate = createDate(ThisYear, ThisMonth, ThisDay);
    NewDate = dateFormat(NewDate, "MM/DD/YYYY");
    return NewDate;
}

// FORMAT BROWSER DATE FOR DB
DateFromBrowser = "11/16/2011";
DateToDB = createDBDate(DateFromBrowser);
writeDump(DateToDB);

function createDBDate(ThisDate) {
    ThisYear = year(ThisDate); 
    ThisMonth = month(ThisDate);
    ThisDay = day(ThisDate);
    NewDate = "#ThisYear##ThisMonth##ThisDay#";
    return NewDate;
}

</cfscript>

Answer 1

You can actually rewrite each function into 1 line of code.

function createBrowserDate(ThisDate) {
  return mid(ThisDate,4,2) & "/" & right(ThisDate,2) & "/" & left(ThisDate,4);
}

and

function createDBDate(ThisDate) {
  return dateFormat( ThisDate, "YYYYMMDD" );
}