getMinDate()

From a list of business objects, return the earliest date as a DtpDate object.

Syntax

public static DtpDate getMinDate(BusObjArray boList, String attr,
       String dateFormat

Parameters

boList
A list of business objects.

attr
The attribute of the business object to use when doing the comparison. The attribute must be of type Date.

dateFormat
The date format. See DtpDate() for more details. If this is null, it is assumed that the date is the number of milliseconds since 1970.

Return values

A DtpDate object which contains the earliest date.

Exceptions

DtpIncompatibleBOTypeException - When the business objects in the list are not the same business object type.

DtpUnknownAttributeException - When the specified attribute is not a valid attribute in the business objects passed in.

DtpUnsupportedAttributeTypeException - When the type of the specified attribute is not one of the supported attribute types listed above.

All of these exceptions are subclasses of RunTimeEntityException.

Notes

The getMinDate() method scans through the list of business objects looking for the business object with the earliest date, and return that date in the form of a DtpDate object.

Tip:
This method is a static method.

In the evaluation of dates, Jan 1, 1999 000000 is earlier than Jan 1, 2002 000000, which is earlier than Jan 1, 2004 000000.

The date information is assumed to be stored in the attribute name passed into the method. If an object has null date information, it is ignored. If all objects have null date information, null is returned.

Examples

try
    {
    DtpDate minDate = DtpDate.getMinDate(bos, "Start Date", 
       "D/M/Y h:m:s");
    }
 catch ( RunTimeEntityException err )
    {
    System.out.println(err.getMessage());
    }
 

See also

getMaxDate(), getMinDateBO()

Copyright IBM Corp. 1997, 2003