date formatting

Hello

I gave a date box which auto populates and I need to be formatted,

substring(instance('admission')/admission_date/date, 1, 8)

I am trying to use nested function as below

format-date(substring(instance('admission')/admission_date/date, 1, 8),'[Y]-[M01]-[D01]')

buy says a invalid xpath, is there any other way.

What is the format of the date you have in `instance('admission')/admission_date/date`? It isn't already a date in the ISO format, i.e. "2017-06-05"?

Alex

Hi Alex,

when populate it from admission instance, just displays as,

201705202017052020170520

I trimmed it to 8 and need to format it, I am not sure about the instance displays as such.

Got it. So, if you want to have the date stored somewhere in the ISO format, you'll want to use something along those lines, I imagine as the calculated or initial value of a control:

for $d in
    substring(instance('admission')/admission_date/date
return concat(
    substring($d, 1, 4), '-',
    substring($d, 5, 2), '-',
    substring($d, 7, 2)
)

Then, once you have the date in ISO format, you can use a control that understands it as a date, and it will format it appropriately. Would this work for you?

Alex

Hello Alex,

it evaluates to invalid xpath, is there any link that describes the for expression.

regards,
Vijay

Hi Vijay,

Strange: if I go to the XPath sandbox:

- As input, I put:

<gaga>201705202017052020170520</gaga>

- As XPath, I put:

for $d in
    /gaga
return concat(
    substring($d, 1, 4), '-',
    substring($d, 5, 2), '-',
    substring($d, 7, 2)
)

- Then as output I get the expected result of `2017-05-20`.

I am thinking that the version of Orbeon Forms you're using might not support `for` in XPath. In case, try the following:

concat(
    substring(substring(instance('admission')/admission_date/date, 1, 4), '-',
    substring(substring(instance('admission')/admission_date/date, 5, 2), '-',
    substring(substring(instance('admission')/admission_date/date, 7, 2)
)

You'll let us know if this help!

Alex

Hi Alex,

I am using 3.9, its works with out 'for'..i was trying for as it simply replaces the whole xpath.

no worries the version will the issue.

Thanks a lot!!

Perfect Vijay. And in case you need more arguments to upgrade ;), starting with 2016.2, you can even use `let` instead of `for`, which is clearer and can avoid problems in cases like this one, where you want to name something rather than do a loop.

https://doc.orbeon.com/xforms/xpath/compatibility.html#support-for-let-expressions

Alex