Formatting Patterns for Dynamic Names and Parameters

A formatting string is a sequence of characters enclosed in curly braces {}. Within a formatting string, some characters have special meanings, as described in the tables below. Any character not listed is copied unmodified to the final name.

Formatting strings can be used in output file/folder names (the -exportfile value) and with parameter values.

Note that you must include the "-useparametertokens" option on the command line or tokens in parameters will be ignored.

Date/Time Patterns

The following patterns are used to insert portions of the current date and/or time.

Date/Time Offsets

The date/time patterns above by default use the current date/time at the time the report is run. It is also possible to use an earlier or later date instead. For example, suppose you run a report each day, but send yesterday's date to the report.

To send today's date, you would use this:

-parameters "{MM/dd/yyyy}"

Using an offset, you can send yesterday's date instead:

-useparametertokens -parameters "{-1d:MM/dd/yyyy}"

Notice that we have added "-1d:" to the beginning of the date token. This tells Report Commander to subtract one day from the current date and use the resulting date/time value instead of the current date/time. If the report is run on September 15, 2011, this is equivalent to the following option:

-parameters "09/14/2011"

Now suppose you have a report that you run on the first day of each month but want the data to be pulled from the previous month.

The following command-line options will accomplish this:

-useparametertokens -parameters "{-1m:MM/01/yyyy} 12:00:00 AM~!{MM/01/yyyy} 12:00:00 AM"

Notice that we have added "-1m:" to the beginning of the first date token. This tells Report Commander to subtract one month from the current date and use the resulting date/time value for the current token. The second token is unaffected.

If we were running this report on August 1, 2011, this would be equivalent to the following options:

-parameters "07/01/2011 12:00:00 AM~!08/01/2011 12:00:00 AM"

That is, the report will select all data with a date on or after July 1, but before August 1.

The date/time offset always must include these components:

• A direction: "-" to subtract from the current date or "+" to add to it)
• An offset: the number of months, days, or hours to add or subtract
• A unit: "m" for moths, "d" for days, or "h" for hours
• A colon, to signal the end of the offset section of the token

For example:

• "{+1h:HH}" inserts the hour that is 1 hour in the future.
• "{-1d:MM/dd/yyyy}" inserts yesterday's date

Sequence Numbers

Report Commander can sequentially number output folders or files to prevent duplicates.

For example, you have a report that is exported several times during the day. You want to keep each version of the report in the same directory, and number them sequentially. You could use the following file name format:

exportfile=c:\reportoutput\{yyyyMMdd}\MyReport-{qqq}.pdf

Each time the report is exported, the sequence number will be incremented, resulting in the following files (assuming the report is run three times on the same day):

c:\reportoutput\20041203\MyReport-001.pdf
c:\reportoutput\20041203\MyReport-002.pdf
c:\reportoutput\20041203\MyReport-003.pdf

A sequence pattern can appear in either the path or the file name. However, it can only appear once in the full path/filename. For example, the following would be invalid:

exportfile=c:\reportoutput\{yyyyMMdd}{qqq}\MyReport-{qqq}.pdf

Sequence numbers cannot be used if the export file is to be uploaded using HTTP or FTP.