Calculating Dates From an Input Date and Offsets

[JMichaelTX]

@CJK

That's a fine way to do it. In fact, it's the most sensible way I can think of.

Thanks for the confirmation.

@CJK

As always, just to provide an alternative way of doing things (but, by no means better, and, to some, arguably worse), here's the AppleScript equivalent:

I generally prefer AppleScript over Shell Script, but in this case I like the Shell Script because:

1. Does not embed the KM Variables in the script
2. Much more concise at 2 lines
3. Is easier to modify to change date formats

@CJK

Getting the user to declare the format and then declare the date could seem a bit cumbersome and a bit-too-much-like-hard-work

I'm not sure I follow you here. The Shell Script has a default date format of the ISO 8601 standard (international), so should be acceptable to most. If the macro builder wants to use a different format, that's easy enough to change in the script. But there are lots of utilities, scripts, etc that will convert dates to ISO.

My thought is to add two lines to the SS to set the input and output date formats.

@CJK

However, what would be really neat is if you allowed inputting of a date in any (sensible) format, which is then parsed and decomposed into its components.

While it might be neat, it is out of scope of this task, date calculation. And, as you have seen with your AppleScript, it takes a lot of coding. I want to keep this simple.

There are many solutions at there for recognizing and converting dates. We could just provide a reference to those, including yours.

Thanks for your feedback, and your enthusiasm about this.