DATEVALUE and converting a string to a date

[mieslep]

Hello,

I have a string output from the Unix 'date' utility that looks like this:

Mon Mar 13 15:48:33 CST 2006

Say this is in cell A1.

I want to get this into a date value, but this isn't working.

MID(A1;5;6)&RIGHT(A1;5)

It gives me a string that looks right ('Mar 13 2006') BUT with DATEVALUE this ends up evaluating as 30Dec1899. Subsequent calculations on this cell confirm that it is being treated by Calc as 30Dec1899.

Any ideas?

[probe1]

Easiest way would be to provide another output format (according to your standard locale format) from your date command.

I get an ISO8601 format output with:

[Dale]

It looks like DATVALUE is not recognising "Mar 13 2006" as a date. This will probably depend on your locale setting. It is certainly the case on my setup using Australian/English date format. You could try:

=MID(A1;9;2)&" "&MID(A1;5;3)&RIGHT(A1;5)

which will return "13 Mar 2006" - or maybe change your locale to one that uses US date format.
_________________
Dale
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[denmarks]

Try using =DATEVALUE(MID(A1;5;6)&RIGHT(A1;5)).
It worked for me. You can also try =DATEVALUE(MID(A1;5;6)&","&RIGHT(A1;5)).

This is my spreadsheet with the first formula.
Mon Mar 13 15:48:33 CST 2006
03/13/2006
_________________
Dennis Marks

[mieslep]

I'm on v2.0.2 and am in the Ireland/English locale. If I input the string "13 Mar 2006" or the string "13 March 2006" it is recognized as a date and automatically converted to my default date format.

denmarks, neither of your suggestions worked. Sorry.

probe1, you're right except that I can't control the code that is outputting the date

dale, I could swear this was one of my permutations, but perhaps not. The formula

=DATEVALUE(MID(A1;9;2)&" "&MID(A1;5;3)&RIGHT(A1;5))

Did the job, thanks!