Part6: QTP and DotNetfactory – Manipulating Date/Time

This is Part6 of QTP and DotNetFactory series by Saket. Refer Part1, Part2,Part3, Part4, Part5

In the first part of this series you have already seen an example to manipulate the date in the required format. In this part we will see how to use DateTime properties and methods to work easily using DotNetFactory in QTP.

The DateTIme structure represents an instance in time and can be expressed as a particular date and time of the day. It can also be used for various operations on date/time variables.

We use ‘System.DateTime’ as type name. We do not need to specify the assembly for this as it belongs to the already loaded namespace ‘System’ (mscorlib.dll).

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")

Let us start with a very simple example to get the number of days in a month.

To get the number of days in a month we have method DaysInMonth,. To find the number of days for November 2009 we can use

MyDate.DaysInMonth(2009,10)

DaysInMonth method accepts two arguments year and month.

Example 18

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
msgbox "Number of Days in November 2009: " & MyDate.DaysInMonth(2009,11)
Set MyDate = Nothing

This gives the output as ‘30’.

This was so simple and you may say that it is also possible in QTP with simple statements. Consider a case where you need to change the format of the Date. You have a date value in say MM-DD/YYYY (e.g. 10-22/2009) format and you want to convert it into DD/MM/YYYY (e.g. 22/10/2009)

When you will try to do this you will definitely end up with a huge complex function, something like the example below.

Example 19

Public Function dateManipulate(sDate)

locDelimOne = InStr(1, sDate, "-")
locDelimTwo = InStr(1, sDate, "/")

If locDelimOne = 2 Then
sMonth = Left(sDate, 1)
sMonth = "0" & sMonth

ElseIf locDelimOne = 3 Then
sMonth = Left(sDate, 2)

End If

sDay = Mid(sDate, locDelimOne + 1, locDelimTwo - locDelimOne - 1)

If Len(sDay) = 1 Then
sDay = "0" & sDay
End If

sLen = Len(sDate) – locDelimTwo
sYear = Mid(sDate, locDelimTwo + 3, sLen)
iDate = sMonth & "/" & sDay & "/" & sYear

dateManipulate = iDate

End Function

msgbox DateManipulate("10-22/2009")

When you will run the above script you will get the required output. But you will see using DotNetFactory, we can get the required output in just three simple statements. See the example below.

Example 20

Function DateManipulate(sDate)

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
Set oDate = MyDate.Parse(sDate)
DateManipulate = oDate.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy")
Set MyDate = Nothing

End Function

msgbox DateManipulate("10-22/2009")

Gives output as

In the above example using DotNetFactory we have retrieved the instance of System.DateTime and we are using Parse method to convert to its DateTime equivalent. And using ToString Method we are converting the date into the required format.

Also you will notice that the function that you have created using DotNetFactory is capable to convert from any format to the DD/MM/YYYY format, where the earlier normal function is capable to convert from one format only, you will need to create more function for different formatting option.

You can try these

msgbox DateManipulate(“10/21/2009”)
msgbox DateManipulate(“10.21.2009”)
msgbox DateManipulate(“2009-10-23”)

Date Time structure includes other methods as well which directly converts into a particular method.

ToLongDateString – Converts the value of this instance to its equivalent long date string.

ToShortDateString– Converts the value of this instance to its equivalent short date string

ToLongTimeString – Converts the value of this instance to its equivalent long time string

ToShortTimeString – Converts the value of this instance to its equivalent short time string

Example 21

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
Set oDate = MyDate.Parse("10/22/2009 01:30:50")
msgbox oDate.ToLongDateString ’ returns - Thursday, October 22, 2009
msgbox oDate.ToLongTimeString ‘ returns - 1:30:50 AM
msgbox oDate.ToShortDateString ‘ returns - 10/22/2009
msgbox oDate.ToShortTimeString ‘ returns - 1:30 AM
Set MyDate = Nothing

Let us now see more examples of using DotNetFactory for Date/Time operation in QTP scripts.

Add Days, Months and Years

The most common operation with Date is Adding/Subtracting Date values. DateTime structure includes direct methods of doing such operation

AddDays – Adds the specified number of days to the value of the instance.

AddMonths – Adds the specified number of months to the value of the instance.

AddYears – Adds the specified number of years to the value of the instance.

Example 22

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
Set rightNow = MyDate.Now
Print "Current Date: " & rightNow.ToString
Print "Add Days - 1: " & rightNow.AddDays(1)
Print "Add Months - 1: " & rightNow.AddMonths(1)
Print "Add Years - 1: " & rightNow.AddYears(1)
Set rightNow = Nothing
Set MyDate = Nothing

Output

Add Hours, Minutes, Seconds and Milliseconds

Similar to AddDays, AddMonths, AddYears, we have AddHours, AddMinutes, Add Seconds, and AddMilliSeconds.

Example 23

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
Set rightNow = MyDate.Now
Print "Current Time: " & rightNow.ToString
Print "Add Hours - 1: " & rightNow.AddHours(1)
Print "Add Minutes - 1: " & rightNow.AddMinutes(1)
Print "Add Seconds - 1: " & rightNow.AddSeconds(7)
Print "Add MilliSeconds - 1: " & rightNow.AddMilliSeconds(1000)
Set rightNow = Nothing
Set MyDate = Nothing

Output

Test Leap Year

We can use another method ‘ISLeapYear’ to determine whether a year is a leap year or not.

This method returns True if the specified year is a leap year otherwise returns False

Example 24

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
sYear = 2010

If MyDate.IsLeapYear(sYear) Then
msgbox sYear & " is Leap Year"

else
msgbox sYear & " is not Leap Year"

End If

Set MyDate = Nothing

Output

Convert to Universal Time and Local Time

DateTime structure includes methods to convert the times to universal time from local time and vice versa.

ToUniversalTime – converts the value of Date time object to coordinated universal time.

ToLocalTime – converts the value of Date time object to local time

 

Example 25

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
Set sDate = MyDate.Now
Msgbox "Local Time is : " & sDate.ToString & vbcrlf
& "Equivalent Universal Time is : " & sDate.ToUniversalTime.ToString
Set sDate = MyDate.Parse("11/2/2009 9:24:23 AM")

Msgbox "Universal Time is : " & sDate.ToString & vbcrlf
& "Equivalent Local Time is : " & sDate.ToLocalTime.ToString

Set sDate = Nothing
Set MyDate = Nothing

Output

In the above examples we have used ‘Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance(“System.DateTime”)’ to create the instance of DateTime object. There are other direct methods of creating this object to particular date time by passing arguments.

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime",,2009,11,2)
msgbox MyDate.ToString

This will return

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime",,2009,11,2,9,45,50)
msgbox MyDate.ToString

This will return

If you wish to set the current Date and time…

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime")
Set sDate = MyDate.Now

instead of using the code above, we can directly use

Set MyDate = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime").Now

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