Sorting function to sort upcoming birthdays

Stanislav

Hello, I'm trying to write a sort function to sort a column based on which birthdays are upcoming first.

This is my code so far: [code]
$(document).ready(function() {
function calculate_date(date) {
var date = date.replace(" ", "");
var now = new Date();
var nowMonth = now.getMonth() + 1;
var nowNumber = (nowMonth) * 100 + now.getDate();

if (date.indexOf('.') > 0) {
/*date a, format dd.mn.(yyyy) ; (year is optional)*/
var eu_date = date.split('.');
} else {
/*date a, format dd/mn/(yyyy) ; (year is optional)*/
var eu_date = date.split('/');
}


/*month*/
var month = eu_date[1];
if (month.length == 1) {
month = 0+month;
}

/*day*/
var day = eu_date[0];
if (day.length == 1) {
day = 0+day;
}

var currNumber = month * 100 + day;


return currNumber - nowNumber ;
}

jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort['eu_date-asc'] = function(a, b) {
x = calculate_date(a);
y = calculate_date(b);

return ((x < y) ? -1 : ((x > y) ? 1 : 0));
};

jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oSort['eu_date-desc'] = function(a, b) {
x = calculate_date(a);
y = calculate_date(b);

return ((x < y) ? 1 : ((x > y) ? -1 : 0));
};

[/code]
It's a modified version of one of the example sorts. My dates are in the dd/mm/yyyy format.

At the moment it just sorts the dates by dd/mm, without consideration of today's date, I can see my current logic is flawed, but I'm just out of ideas on how to tackle the problem. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

fbas

this is off the top of my head, but should give you some ideas. some minor parsing, then using javascript functions to create dates, using the current year (ignore year fields). if date is less than today, then change the year to next year.

returns null for any errors. you can add more robust error reporting/handling.

[code]
// parse date in a variety of formats and return as
function calculate_date(datestring) {

//detect "/" delimiter
var date_array = datestring.split('/');

// detect "." delimiter
if (date_array.length == 1)
date_array = date.string.split('.');

// maybe you have some more formats to test for.. add them here




// continue.. .we should have 2 or 3 fields (d/m or d/m/y)
if (date_array.length < 2)
return; // some kind of error

if (date_array.length > 3)
return; // some kind of error

for (i in date_array)
if (isNaN(date_array[i]))
return; // non-numeric values passed in. error

var today = new Date(); // get current date
var day = date_array[0];
var month = date_array[1] - 1;
var year = today.getFullYear();

try {
var parsed_date = new Date(year, month, day);
if (parsed_date < today) parsed_date .setFullYear(parsed_date .getFullYear()+1);
return parsed_date;
}
catch (e) {
return; // some sort of error
}


}
[/code]

then you can use regular date comparison functions to sort.