Question

I need to convert ordinal dates like 2011001 (Jan 1, 2011) to MM/dd/yyyy format (01/01/2011). XSLT 2.0 is OK.

I may not have asked this correctly; I’m not sure what additional information one would need to help solve this issue. Let me know and I will provide any needed info. Any solutions or pointers appreciated.

Answer 1

This will work in XSLT 2.0:

<xsl:template match="date">
  <xsl:copy>
     <xsl:analyze-string select="." regex="([0-9]{{4}})([0-9]{{3}})">
       <xsl:matching-substring>
         <xsl:variable name="jan1" as="xs:date" select="xs:date(fn:concat(fn:regex-group(1),'-01-01'))"/>
         <xsl:variable name="offset" as="xs:dayTimeDuration" select="xs:dayTimeDuration(fn:concat('P',number(fn:regex-group(2))-1,'D'))"/>
         <xsl:value-of select="format-date($jan1+$offset, '[M,2]/[D,2]/[Y]')"/>
       </xsl:matching-substring>
       <xsl:non-matching-substring>
         <xsl:value-of select="."/>
       </xsl:non-matching-substring>
     </xsl:analyze-string>
   </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

The secret is to use the ordinal as an offset from Jan 1 of the supplied year. Then, format-date can output the date in any format you want.

You could it using substring() instead of xsl:analyze-string but this way lets you ensure you only try to convert dates in the proper format.