How to Display a Reporting Sept to August PLease Help

[vbMarkO]

How to Create Months Sept to August on load

 

OK,

 

Here is what I have..... The reporting year for the reports to be generated are from September to August....

 

FOr example this Reporting year just started since its September so

September 2005 - August 2006 is one reporting Year.

 

Ok what I am needing to do is this;

 

Lets say a User starts up my software for the first time and it goes through it preparation steps so the user can begin inputting data... this is what it does

 

Step 1:

Gathers User Personal Info

Step 2:

Checks to see what Year it is then Creates a Folder by the name of the Year ie; IF its 2006 then a Folder with the name 2006 is created

 

Step 3:

It then Checks for what the Present Month is CREATES Month Folder

In our Example we will say it is FEBRUARY this is the middle of the

Reporting year. Month Folders Name is FEBRUARY

It places the Month Folder in the Year Folder In this example

FEBRUARY was crated in 2006 thus it would be placed in the 2006

Folder

2006 <--------------Year Folder

|_ _ FEBRUARY<----Month Folder

 

Step 4: ??????? This is where I need HELP

While it is Creating Month Folder ie; FEBRUARY it should then automatically Create folders for each month prior to FEBRUARY in this example

 

IMPORTANT: When it creates these Month Folders folders as per this example there will be a few Months that will fall under the Year 2006 and a few months under the Year 2005

But since 2006 Year Folder was Created it would need to create the 2005 Year folder as well

So for the Months of the Reporting year of September 2005 to August 2006

the months Prior to FEBRUARY that fall under the Year 2005 should be placed in the 2005 Folder ie; September, October, Nevember, December all would be placed in the 2005 folder then January would be placed in the 2006 Folder along with FEBRUARY that was created at start of the program

 

Example;

2005

|_ _ _September

|____October

|_ _ _November

|_ _ _December

 

 

2006

|_ _ _JANUARY

|____FEBRUARY<--- Date Application was Launched First Time

This Month was created and all previous

Months of the REPORTING YEAR which

again is SEPT through AUGUST

 

Wow a mouth full and I fear I may not have explained this in a way that it is clear as to what I am needing. IF not I will attempt to re explain it in another way ....

 

ANy help much appreciated

 

vbMarkO

Edited September 6, 2005 by vbMarkO

[kejpa]

Hi!

Maybe I misunderstood you, but why not check if last-year_folder (2005) exists and if it doesn't create it and then Sept-Dec month folder. After that you create this years folder and all months.

 

Another thing you might want is to use folder names like "2006-01" instead of "January" or you will have them like

2006 <--------------Year Folder

|_ _ april

|_ _ august

|_ _ december

|_ _ february

|_ _ january

|_ _ july

|_ _ june

|_ _ may

|_ _ march

|_ _ november

|_ _ october

|_ _ september

 

HTH

/Kejpa

[vbMarkO]

Here is some code to demonstrate one aspect or part of what I am doing ...

 

The code will show what it is to display in a Label

What it displays is explained within the code in the coment areas.

 

Following the code I will explain what more I need it to do.....

 

       Dim myAPPYear As String
       myAPPYear = MainApp.tsyearCombo.Text   ' Lets use 2005    as an example 
       ' 2005 Falls within Reporting Year September(2004)---August(2005) so
       ' If the Year is 2005 and the user selects September of 2005 then
       ' the Lable1(tsStubsLBL.Text) will show the text "Report Stubs for: 2005-2006"
       ' if the user however had selected August for example then the Label would show
       ' "Report Stubs For: 2004-2005"


       If MainApp.tsmonthCombo.Text = "September" Then
           MainApp.tsStubsLBL.Text = "Report Stubs for: " & myAPPYear & "-" & myAPPYear + 1
       ElseIf MainApp.tsmonthCombo.Text = "October" Then
           MainApp.tsStubsLBL.Text = "Report Stubs for: " & myAPPYear & "-" & myAPPYear + 1
       ElseIf MainApp.tsmonthCombo.Text = "November" Then
           MainApp.tsStubsLBL.Text = "Report Stubs for: " & myAPPYear & "-" & myAPPYear + 1
       ElseIf MainApp.tsmonthCombo.Text = "December" Then
           MainApp.tsStubsLBL.Text = "Report Stubs for: " & myAPPYear & "-" & myAPPYear + 1
       Else
           MainApp.tsStubsLBL.Text = "Report Stubs for: " & myAPPYear - 1 & "-" & myAPPYear
       End If

 

Ok, now what more I need it do is this;

 

When the application is first opened I need it to determine the Year

I have the code for this but after it determines the Year it needs to determine the Month I also have the code for these and will place them here in a moment

   Public myYear = DateTime.Now.Year.ToString()
   Public myMonth = DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM")

After it determines the Year and the month of when the application is first Launched it will need to create the year folders based on what month application is first launched.

 

As exaplined in the comments above shoud they launch App for first time in

Year of 2006 month of February

February would be the middle of the Reporting Year 2005 -2006

So the year folders that need to be created in this example would be

2005

and

2006

Within these Folders would need to be placed

2006

----January

----Febuary ' <--- This is the Month Application was launched in this example

Also

2005

|_ _ _September

|____October

|_ _ _November

|_ _ _December

 

As both represent the Reporting Year of Sept(2005) through August(2006)

 

I however to be clear only want it to create Month Folders up to when the application is First Launched

 

vbMarkO

p.S. I hope this is a little clearer now

ALso I am open to any sugestions that might simplify this

Edited September 6, 2005 by vbMarkO

[mark007]

Lots of ways of doing this. One way would be:

 

Dim m, y As Integer
       If DateTime.Now.Month > 8 Then
           m = DateTime.Now.Month - 8
           y = DateTime.Now.Year
       Else
           m = DateTime.Now.Month + 4
           y = DateTime.Now.Year - 1
       End If
       For i As Integer = 1 To m
           If i > 4 Then
               CreateFolder(y + 1, i - 4)
           Else
               CreateFolder(y, i + 8)
           End If
       Next

 

assuming you have a procedure to create a folder called CreateFolder that takes the year and month.

 

:)

[vbMarkO]

I like the look of this... I am certainly willing to give it a go However I have a question

 

The code assumes a Procedure already in place..... there isnt one...

 

All though I have code for creating a Directory folder the procedure call you made createFolder seems would need to react to what you placed at the end of the call.

 

I am not sure how exactly to do that would you be willing to direct exactly how it should do that?

I am assuming the procdure would need to respond to the y integer and m integer

 

vbMarkO

[mark007]

It just creates the folders. Something like:

 

Private Sub CreateFolder(ByVal y As Integer, ByVal m As Integer)
       If Not System.IO.Directory.Exists(FOLDERPATH & y.ToString) Then
           System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(FOLDERPATH & y.ToString)
       End If
       If Not System.IO.Directory.Exists(FOLDERPATH & y.ToString & "\" & m.ToString) Then
           System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(FOLDERPATH & y.ToString & "\" & m.ToString)
       End If
   End Sub

 

Where FOLDERPATH should be changed to reflect the parent folder of all the year folders.

 

:)

[travisowens]

I highly recommend you don't use any folders and just use a format of

 

YYYY-MM.xxx (or whatever format you need, if daily then YYYY-MM-DD.xx or if there are many report types then YYYY-MM-DD-ReportType.xxx, etc)

 

You really shouldn't assume your company's reporting year (fiscal year?) is always Sept-Aug, if this ever changed, it would be devestating for your app's architecture. If you just throw all these files in 1 dir, you could easily make a minor change to reconfigure your start & end point for a fiscal. If you really want to split hairs, there's an unarguable flaw in naming a folder 2006 only to have files from 2005 AND 2006 in it. I'd have to agree with a previous post and if you were deadset on folders, follow calendar dates and have your app understand that it needs everything between /2005/Sept/ to /2006/Aug/

 

The only reason I would use folders is if humans need to browse the directory and you want a neat way to organize every month & year and you have too many files (1 per day?).

 

But if we're talking only 1 file per month, keep it in 1 folder, it will be easier for humans and other applications to digest it. My biggest pet peeve is when people date files in reverse order, being MMDDYYYY or use month names like 2005-August.txt as neither method sorts well in a folder.

[vbMarkO]

Interesting reply and I see the logic of what you are saying however.

 

There is a need for easy browsing of the folders and separation of the data in this manner.

 

As far as the worry about change..... this organization has been using this same structure longer than you and I have been alive..... the chance it will change any time soon is very slim.... however, the point is noted for consideration.

 

 

vbMarkO