Article

(View Disclaimer)

Problem

A Forum reader recently asked:

"I'm trying to parse a string in a format "d.M.y" (like 23.12.2007) for Login Expiration Time. Any ideas?"

And here's the response from Dave Gersic ...

Solution

If you know it'll always be in that format, you can just break it up with substring.

I have this policy on one of my DelimText drivers to allow specified Login Expiration Time in human format:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><policy
xmlns:jdate="http://www.novell.com/nxsl/java/java.util.Date"
xmlns:jdateformat="http://www.novell.com/nxsl/java/java.text.SimpleDateFormat">
 <rule>
  <description>Expire Accounts - Specified Date</description>
  <conditions>
   <and>
    <if-operation mode="case" op="equal">add</if-operation>
    <if-op-attr name="Login Expiration Time" op="available"/>
   </and>
  </conditions>
  <actions>
   <do-set-local-variable name="ExpireDate">
    <arg-string>
     <token-substring length="2" start="4">
      <token-op-attr name="Login Expiration Time"/>
     </token-substring>
     <token-text xml:space="preserve">/</token-text>
     <token-substring length="2" start="6">
      <token-op-attr name="Login Expiration Time"/>
     </token-substring>
     <token-text xml:space="preserve">/</token-text>
     <token-substring length="4" start="0">
      <token-op-attr name="Login Expiration Time"/>
     </token-substring>
    </arg-string>
   </do-set-local-variable>
   <do-reformat-op-attr name="Login Expiration Time">
    <arg-value type="time">
     <token-xpath expression="round(jdate:parse($ExpireDate)div 1000)"/>
    </arg-value>
   </do-reformat-op-attr>
   <do-break/>
  </actions>
 </rule>
 <rule>
  <description>Expire Accounts - Default 1 Year</description>
  <conditions>
   <and>
    <if-operation mode="case" op="equal">add</if-operation>
    <if-op-attr name="Login Expiration Time" op="not-available"/>
   </and>
  </conditions>
  <actions>
   <do-set-dest-attr-value name="Login Expiration Time">
    <arg-value type="string">
     <token-xpath expression="round(jdate:getTime(jdate:new()) div
1000)+31536000"/>
    </arg-value>
   </do-set-dest-attr-value>
   <do-break/>
  </actions>
 </rule>
</policy>

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.