Changing a long date to a short date

Scripting Forums AppleScript Studio & Xcode
#1

Hi,
Could someone tell me how to change a long date like Friday, May 13, 2005 into a short date like 05/13/05? I need to do this because when I tell Applescript to take Friday, May 13, 2005 from 26/5/05 I get some huge number… :confused:

I would be really grateful for any help :slight_smile:

Model: Power Mac G5
Browser: Safari 412
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.4)

#2

Either of these should work:

set theDay to day of (current date) as string
set theMonth to month of (current date) as integer
set theYear to year of (current date)

set shortDate to theDay & "/" & theMonth & "/" & theYear


set shortDate to do shell script "date +%d/%m/%y"
#3

Hi Elijah,

Also:

set myDate to "Friday, May 13, 2005"
set myShortDate to short date string of (date myDate) --> "13/5/05"

The long number you are getting is the difference in seconds. Divide this by 86400 (60 * 60 * 24) to get days.

Best wishes

John M

#4

Very nice, John. I was unaware you could do that.

#5

Or, since AppleScript has time constants for seconds, minutes, hours, & days, you can just use:

set date_1 to "May 13, 2005"
set date_2 to "May 26, 2005"
return ((date date_2) - (date date_1)) / days

Jon

#6

Very neat.

#7

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for the great suggestions, they are all really handy tips to know. That seems so obvious that it was coming out as seconds now…

I used jonn8’s one in the end, just an extra 5 letters! D’oh!

:slight_smile:

Thanks again!