LiveCode Forums.

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:16 pm**

See the dictionary entry for "useSystemDate"

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:25 pm**

That appears to be non-functional:
-

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:26 pm**

USESYSTEMDATE is a LOCAL property!

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:31 pm**

Right . . .

In a button setting it to false:
-

-
It does noting, as advertised.

In a button setting it to true
-

-
It DOES change the format, and also mucks around with the itemDelimiter.

What is hilarious about this is that when I was at school (in England) our History teacher would write the date 8/20/2025 (well, he wouldn't as that was 1975). and our Maths teacher would write it 8.20.2025 . . .

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:43 pm**

And, in a global world better tools are needed:
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-
Robot says:
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scholars estimate that roughly 40-50 distinct calendar systems are still actively used today in some capacity

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 5:56 pm**

richmond62 wrote: Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:43 pm And, in a global world better tools are needed...

There must be something in those images I'm not noticing.

xTalks use a default date format internally for computational consistency, and through useSystemDate LC accesses the user's preference expressed in OS settings for display.

Under what circumstance is the user's preference wrong?

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 6:11 pm**

Hi Klaus,
Here is the code..

Code: Select all

  if fld "dateready" is 3 then
      set the itemdelimiter to "/"   
      put word 1 of fld "startday" into sday
      put word 1 of  fld "startyr" into syr
      put word 1 of  fld "startmth" into smth
      put sday & "/" & smth & "/" & syr into tdate
      put sday & "/" & smth & "/" & syr into tdate2
      convert tdate2 to seconds 
      #answer tdate2
      #convert tdate2 to system date
      #convert tdate2 to seconds 
      put tdate2 into fld "date3"
      show  fld "announce81"
      put "The start date of the current business trading year is" & CR &   tdate into fld "announce81"
      convert the date to seconds
      put it into date2
      put it into fld "date2"
      put fld "date2" - fld "date3" into fld "temp1"
      put 60*60*24*365 into date4
      put 60*60*24*365 into fld "date4"
      if fld "temp1" > fld "date4" then
         put "nogo" into fld "temp2"
      end if
      if fld "temp2" is "nogo" then
         answer "That date is more than a year ago, so cannot refer to the current year. Try again"
         hide fld "announce81"
         put empty into fld "temp2"
         put empty into fld "temp1"
         put empty into fld "date2"
         put empty into fld "date3"
         put empty into fld "date4"
         exit mouseup
      end if

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 6:40 pm**

Is it just me, or?

Code: Select all

fld "dateready" is 3 then

or, might that not be:

Code: Select all

fld "dateready" contains 3 then

Posted: **Wed Aug 20, 2025 8:30 pm**

Just you I'm guessing,

Code: Select all

fld "dateready" is 3

as in

Code: Select all

fld "dateready" = 3

Posted: **Thu Aug 21, 2025 8:45 am**

HI all,
I think I finally got it figured with this code

Code: Select all

 if fld "dateready" is 3 then
      set the itemdelimiter to "/"   
      put word 1 of fld "startday" into sday
      put word 1 of  fld "startyr" into syr
      put word 1 of  fld "startmth" into smth
      put smth & "/" & sday & "/" & syr into tdate2
      put sday & "/" & smth & "/" & syr into tdate
      convert tdate from system date to long english date
      convert tdate2 to seconds 
      put tdate2 into fld "date3"
      show  fld "announce81"
      put "The start date of the current business trading year is" & CR &   tdate into fld "announce81"
      convert the date to seconds
      put it into date2
      put it into fld "date2"
      put fld "date2" - fld "date3" into fld "temp1"
      put 60*60*24*365 into date4
      put 60*60*24*365 into fld "date4"
      if fld "temp1" > fld "date4" then
         put "nogo" into fld "temp2"
      end if
      if fld "temp2" is "nogo" then
         answer "That date is more than a year ago, so cannot refer to the current year. Try again."titled field "fieldboxtitle" of cd "template1"
         hide fld "announce81"
         put empty into fld "temp2"
         put empty into fld "temp1"
         put empty into fld "date2"
         put empty into fld "date3"
         put empty into fld "date4"
         exit mouseup
      end if
      if fld "temp1" < 0 then
         answer "That date is in the future, so cannot be the start date of the current year. Try again."titled field "fieldboxtitle" of cd "template1"
         hide fld "announce81"
         put empty into fld "temp2"
         put empty into fld "temp1"
         put empty into fld "date2"
         put empty into fld "date3"
         put empty into fld "date4"
         exit mouseup
      end if
     end if

THank you all, once again for everything.

Posted: **Thu Aug 21, 2025 12:04 pm**

Code: Select all

...
 convert tdate from system date to long english date
...

YES, SIR!

But you still did not tell us what country (with that system date) you are living in.

Posted: **Thu Aug 21, 2025 3:49 pm**

Hi Klaus,
I am a native of the United Kingdom of GREAT (get that ?, GREAT) Britain. Not to be confused (under any circumstances - torture, political waffle) with the European Union. A free-born Englishman, travelled the Orient, Africa, the Middle East, and now safely back home, struggling with systemdates and my mobile phone. Back in the day, I was a field helicopter engineer, often in the remotest of locations, in jungles, deserts, oil platforms, and that most perilous space of all, VIP airport lounges - ferrying ministers of state.
I like Livecode, and this forum is most helpful. I hope the above entertains rather that offends.

Posted: **Thu Aug 21, 2025 4:11 pm**

A free-born Englishman

I'd be a bit careful where you use that phrase.

Posted: **Thu Aug 21, 2025 4:42 pm**

CAsba wrote: Thu Aug 21, 2025 3:49 pm I am a native of the United Kingdom of GREAT (get that ?, GREAT) Britain.

As a fellow citizen of the formerly Great Britain:
A source of confusion is that “English” date is actually US, not English date format…

Posted: **Thu Aug 21, 2025 5:42 pm**

Using "set the useSystemDate to true" in a handler where dates are interpreted generally makes things a lot simpler.

Put one field on a card "fldDate" and get a user to put a date into it in the user's typically accepted format

In a button

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
  set the useSystemDate to true
   put field "fldDate" into tDate
   if tDate is not a date then
     answer "The field contents do not match the date format according to the regional settings of this computer" -- or you're on Windows and the year you've input is prior to 1970, stupid, stupidly unforgiveable bug
   else
     convert tDate to seconds
     answer tDate
   end if
end mouseUp

Assuming you're not falling foul of the inability of LiveCode to interpret a date on Windows prior to the Unix epoch (not a "Windows" bug, it's a "LiveCode" bug) then a user in USA with default regional settings, and a user in UK with default regional settings will both receive the same report of the seconds, despite having input different formats.

The useSystemDate property is reset to default (false) at the end of the handler - you have to specifically set it every time you're in a new scope.

Also, malte's libDate library is still available viewtopic.php?f=16&t=15752#p79627 (github link at end of the thread
https://github.com/derbrill/libdate )

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