Helpful hint regarding files with date names

[muck_a_luck]

A client just sent me individual .pdf files of all their pay statements for the past three years.

They named them in a day month year format: 9Sept2004, 12Oct006 and so on.

Which means that they are listing in order by the day. Not by the date.

Which makes a hellish problem for me, because I need to be sure that I include every one of these into the big .pdf doc (being produced to opposing counsel) and don't miss any. But they are all randomly spread around. Very hard to track and get right.

This problem is easily avoided.

Instead of 9Sept2004, or even 09092004, try listing the date in year month day format. 040909.

NOW, all the documents will appear in date order, earliest year first.

Easy peasy.

(I am renaming all the files before I start.)

Hello. My name is CK and I will be your executive assistant for today. I expect a 35 hour work week and a salary of $60k per year, with benefits.

Thank you.

Comments

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Oh, ouch. I feel your pain.

[mresundance.livejournal.com]

:/

Clients like to share their stupid with everyone.

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

No.

Use all four of the year, or you'll be sorry sooner or later. 20070628_*.* is the format that best keeps you out of office hell. Your files will always be in date order, but you can write a quick little string search routine that truncates the file name at the underscore and then you can search by name too. You'll like yourself better in the morning.

And if you're dealing with huge machine-generated tab-separated spreadsheets, put a 24 hour time stamp as HHMMSS in the filename as well as in the data stream. Otherwise you'll end up with 7.2 gigabyte files that look astonishingly alike.

Don't ask.

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

I *knew* someone would call me on the two digit year. Here's my thoughts on that. For the rest of my life, I can name letters to you Alpha_Strike070628, Alpha_Strike080628, and so on, and they will be in date order. I figure, if I live to the turn of the next century, which would make me 130ish, btw, I will deal with the two digit date at that time! :D

I won't ask.

My parents are both computer programmers by trade. I know some of the scary things. Mom thought it was funny that everyone was waiting for Y2K. She said in all her code the date she used as the end/test/whatever date for programs was the date 9/9/99 or some such, I can't remember, but anyway, the big day was in September 1999 and who cared about 2000 anyway?

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

Leave it to the wannabee alpha-geek to do it.

I used a 32 bit signed integer as a time stamp. It's pretty common to do this: there's a function that counts seconds from 12:00 AM GMT January 1, 1904 for you. But 32 bits only lets you count to 4,294,967,295. So, *counts on fingers* at 23:28:15 on February 5, 2040, my guidance set test stations will go belly up and never report the time/date correctly again. They promised that the Minute Man III would be removed from service by 2025, so I didn't have to worry.

The Peacekeeper (MX missile) was supposed to replace the MMIII in 1971.

I will be retired.

[cocoajava.livejournal.com]

I tend to name stuff like 2007_12_01, so I can get my sort the way I like it and the underscores make it easier on my weary weary eyes.

Hello, my name is CJ and I will be your office minion. I expect an exorbitant salary and plenty of time to websurf. KTHNX.

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

What if I offer you cookies and really cute office sub-minions?

[cocoajava.livejournal.com]

You'd have a deal! :D Mmmm. Cute office sub-minions.