Birthday

[javiersorribes]

Hi everyone! I'm a begnner in writing ActionScript and wonder if you could help me. The thing is I want a script that, having for example three dates:

birthJohn= new Date(82, 8, 21)
birthMary= new Date(78, 1, 25)
birthPaul= new Date(54, 10, 9)

and today's date:

myDate=new Date()

, tells you the nearest birthday and how old will that person be.

Thank you!

[jbum]

A few notes about the following script.

It uses an array to keep track of the names and dates. It then uses a loop to walk thru the array, checking each date in sequence.

To compare dates the Date.getTime() function is used. This returns the date as a single number (milliseconds since 1970) which is useful when comparing the distance between dates. For example if I have two dates a and b and a.getTime() is less than b.getTime() then I know that a happened before b.

code:

---

// this is an array of three objects

// each object has a name and a bday

dbase = [{name:"John", bday:new Date(82,8,21)},

		 {name:"Mary", bday:new Date(78,1,25)}, 

		 {name:"Paul", bday:new Date(54,10,9)}]; 



today = new Date();

var year = today.getFullYear();



var closestBDay = undefined;

var closestIdx = 0;



for (var i=0; i < dbase.length; ++i) 

{

  // for the person i

  // get their birthday for this year

  var nextBday = new Date(year, dbase[i].bday.getMonth(), dbase[i].bday.getDay());

  // check if it already happened

  if (nextBday.getTime() < today.getTime()) {

	  // if so, get their birthday for next year

	  // trace(dbase[i].name + ' already had a birthday this year');

	  nextBday = new Date(year+1, dbase[i].bday.getMonth(), dbase[i].bday.getDay());

  }

  // check if it's the closest birthday so far, if so, keep track of it

  if (closestBDay == undefined || nextBday.getTime() - today.getTime() < closestBday.getTime() - today.getTime())

  {

	  closestBday = nextBday;

	  closestIdx = i;

  }

}

trace('The next birthday belongs to ' + dbase[closestIdx].name);

trace('who will be ' + (closestBDay.getYear() - dbase[closestIdx].bday.getYear()) + ' years old');

trace('on ' + closestBday);

---

[javiersorribes]

You're great! It's even better than I thought!!
Now: I'm creating some kind of "Flash enhaced" windows background, which would do, among other things, the "birthday thing" shown above.
I do this by exporting a 1024x768 Flash to html and setting it as WXP background.

Question: How would I do this with an external text file so that the user could edit his own birthdays without having access to the script?

Thanks a lot.

[dziewuliz]

First of all, it looks like a great code, however it's not working as it should be:

Firstly, the variable names ar mistaken (closestBDay instead of closestBday).

Secondly, even corrected, this code comes with different results when choosing new array elements:

code:

---

// this is an array of three objects

// each object has a name and a bday

dbase = [{name:"John", bday:new Date(88, 7, 21)},

		{name:"Mary", bday:new Date(88, 7, 29)},

		{name:"Paul", bday:new Date(88, 7, 12)}];



today = new Date();



var year = today.getFullYear();

var closestBday = undefined;

var closestIdx = 0;



for (var i = 0; i<dbase.length; ++i) {

	// for the person i

	// get their birthday for this year

	var nextBday = new Date(year, dbase[i].bday.getMonth(), dbase[i].bday.getDay());

	// check if it already happened

	if (nextBday.getTime()<today.getTime()) {

		// if so, get their birthday for next year

		// trace(dbase[i].name + ' already had a birthday this year');

		nextBday = new Date(year+1, dbase[i].bday.getMonth(), dbase[i].bday.getDay());

	}

	// check if it's the closest birthday so far, if so, keep track of it 

	if (closestBday == undefined || nextBday.getTime()-today.getTime()<closestBday.getTime()-today.getTime()) {

		closestBday = nextBday;

		closestIdx = i;

	}

}

trace('The next birthday belongs to '+dbase[closestIdx].name);

trace('who will be '+(closestBday.getYear()-dbase[closestIdx].bday.getYear())+' years old');

trace('on '+closestBday);

---

For some reason, the output is John (August 21), although it should be Paul (August 12).

I can't seem to find an error here, therefore any suggestions/thoughts are highly appreciated...

I desperately need your help here...