Function to Make Now dates Sortable in Listviews, etc.

Category:

Dates and Math

Type:

Snippets

Difficulty:

Beginning

Author:

Micihael M. Ross

Version Compatibility: Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic 5

More information:

Str(Now) gives you a date and time according to your system settings. The problem is this date/time string does not sort in controls like Listviews. This function simply adds zeros to single-digit months, days and hours, and replaces AM and PM with the 24-hour clock. If you want sortable dates and times without using reams of complex code to add this behavior to the control, this is the way to go.

Instructions: Copy the declarations and code below and paste directly into your VB project.

Declarations:
' (None)

Code:

Public Function SortableNowDate() As String

Dim strNow As String
    strNow = Str$(Now)
    If InStr(Left$(strNow, 2), "/") > 0 Then strNow = "0" + _
       strNow
    If InStr(Mid$(strNow, 5, 1), "/") > 0 Then strNow = _
        Left$(strNow, 3) + "0" + Mid$(strNow, 4, 6)
    If Len(Now) = 19 Then
        strNow = strNow + Right$(Str$(Now), 11)
    Else
        strNow = strNow + Right$(Str$(Now), 12)
    End If
    If Right$(strNow, 2) = "AM" Then
        If InStr(Mid$(strNow, 13, 1), ":") > 0 Then
            strNow = Left$(Left$(strNow, 11) + "0" + _
              Right$(strNow, 10), 19)
        Else
            If Val(Mid$(strNow, 12, 2)) = 12 Then
                strNow = Left$(Left$(strNow, 11) + "00:" + _
                  Right$(strNow, 8), 19)
            Else 'if 10 or 11
                strNow = Left$(strNow, 19)
            End If
        End If
    Else
        If Len(Now) = 19 Then
            strNow = Left$(Left$(strNow, 10) + _
               Str$(Val(Mid$(strNow, 12, 1)) + "12") + _
               Right$(strNow, 9), 19)
        Else
            If Val(Mid$(strNow, 12, 2)) < 12 Then
                strNow = Left$(Left$(strNow, 10) + _
                  Str$(Val(Mid$(strNow, 12, 2)) + "12") _
                  + Right$(strNow, 9), 19)
            Else
                strNow = Left$(Left$(strNow, 10) + _
                  Str$(Val(Mid$(strNow, 12, 2))) + _
                  Right$(strNow, 9), 19)
            End If
        End If
    End If
    SortableNowDate = strNow

End Function