Date comparison

[southpawDiscGolf]

How in VBA can you evaluate a cell in the "general" format and in the "date" format? I'd perfer do this entirely in VBA without use of a helper column in Excel.

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

Welcome to the Board.

What do you mean by evaluate?

 

[southpawDiscGolf]

Situation 1
Cell is formatted “General” and the user enter a date using the method mmddyy. Macro that will change this to mm/dd/yy
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o> </o>
Situation 2
Cell is formatted “General” and the user enter a date using the method mm/dd/yy. Desired result is obtained
<o> </o>
Situation 3
Cell is formatted Date and the user enter a date using the method mm/dd/yy
Desired result is obtained
<o> </o>
Situation 4 – This is the problem.
Cell is formatted Date and the user enter a date using the method mmddyy (Excel takes this as the number of days from 1/1/1900 not the desired result). The VBA. listed below, needs to be modified to handle this


Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Excel.Range)
Dim DateStr As String
On Error GoTo EndMacro
If Application.Intersect(Target, Range("A1:A10")) Is Nothing Then
Exit Sub
End If
If Target.Cells.Count > 1 Then
Exit Sub
End If
If Target.Value = "" Then
Target.NumberFormat = "General"
Exit Sub
End If
If VarType(Target) = vbDate Then
Exit Sub
End If
Application.EnableEvents = False
'The following logic was found on Chip Pearson's website
With Target
If .HasFormula = False Then
Select Case Len(.Formula)
Case 4 ' e.g., 9298 = 2-Sep-1998
DateStr = Left(.Formula, 1) & "/" & _
Mid(.Formula, 2, 1) & "/" & Right(.Formula, 2)
Case 5 ' e.g., 11298 = 12-Jan-1998 NOT 2-Nov-1998
DateStr = Left(.Formula, 1) & "/" & _
Mid(.Formula, 2, 2) & "/" & Right(.Formula, 2)
Case 6 ' e.g., 090298 = 2-Sep-1998
DateStr = Left(.Formula, 2) & "/" & _
Mid(.Formula, 3, 2) & "/" & Right(.Formula, 2)
Case 7 ' e.g., 1231998 = 23-Jan-1998 NOT 3-Dec-1998
DateStr = Left(.Formula, 1) & "/" & _
Mid(.Formula, 2, 2) & "/" & Right(.Formula, 4)
Case 8 ' e.g., 09021998 = 2-Sep-1998
DateStr = Left(.Formula, 2) & "/" & _
Mid(.Formula, 3, 2) & "/" & Right(.Formula, 4)
Case Else
Err.Raise 0
End Select
.Formula = DateValue(DateStr)
End If
End With
'The preceding logic was found on Chip Pearson's website
Application.EnableEvents = True
Exit Sub
EndMacro:
MsgBox "You did not enter a valid date."
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub

<o> </o>

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

I guess you could check that the value of the date is reasonable. For example 032309 would be 15 June 1988.

 

[southpawDiscGolf]

Since this information will be birthday's back to 1908. The range of dates that could be reasonable is broad. Is there a way to know how the user entered a number either with or without "/"s that can be captured before Excel converts it?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

No, there isn't. A serial data is a number. The format merely determines how it is shown.

 

[southpawDiscGolf]

How about this:
Force the input to be text:
Look at the inputted text - if it has a "/" change the format to "Date" (and calculate the cell if necessary)
If is a number and doesn't have a slash - run it through the macro
If it isn't a number kick out an error message

Will this approach work?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

How would you force the input to be text?

 

[southpawDiscGolf]

Do you know if it possible to force input to be text?

I hope that I've stated what I want to do. But in case there is any confusion. I want the user to have total flexibility to input date information in any format that they desire - either with or without slashes and have the system be smart enough to interpret the input and make the necessary changes.

I was starting with one approach, which obviously has bugs and isn't finished and I'm looking for help with an approach that will work. Is there an approach that will work?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

I don't think what you want is possible if the cell has a date format.