Relevance - returning different types

Content Authoring
1

I have relevance that I want to return a date within a text file if it is appropriate, or some other string such as"Not installed" if it doesn’t exist. But if it does contain a date I would like Bigfix to treat it like a date so I can sort it in chronological order. However I’m finding that I can only return as a string. Is there any way I could get this relevance to return a date format when appropriate and otherwise return one of the strings?

Thanks

if not exists file "/Library/Logs/CrashPlan/history.log.1" then "Not Installed!" else if not(content of file "/Library/Logs/CrashPlan/history.log.1" contains "Starting backup to ") then "Backup Never Started!" else maxima of ( (it as date ) of ( ((it as integer as string) of preceding text of last "/" of following text of first "/" of it ) & " " & (preceding text of first "/" of it as integer as month as three letters)& " " & "20" & (following text of last "/" of it as integer as string)) of preceding text of first " " of following text of first "I " of it) of lines whose (it contains "Starting backup to") of file "/Library/Logs/CrashPlan/history.log.1" as string
2

This is a “feature”. I have a feature request in to have the web reports respect the cast of the results.

vote for it!

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/execute?use_case=viewRfe&CR_ID=74656

3

Leave the Date results as type Date, and cast the string messages as errors, i.e.

If not exists file "/foor/bar" then error "no file" else modification date of file "/foo/bar"
1 Like
4

This still won’t allow him to search by date in WebReports. It will still be converted into a string in WR.

but a very simple/nice solution!

5

True, Web Reports does have the problem of sorting as text strings (as you note earlier). This would help in an Analysis in the console, but not in Web Reports.

6

For the reason that Web Reports does not sort based on date or time, I always format date and time in the following formats.
This way, string sorts will still display correctly.

q: (year of it as string & "-" & month of it as two digits as string & "-" & day_of_month of it as two digits as string) of current date
A: 2015-08-05

q: ((year of it as string & "/" & month of it as two digits & "/" & day_of_month of it as two digits) of  date(local time zone) of it & " "& (two digit hour of it as string & ":" & two digit minute of it as string & ":" & two digit second of it as string) of time (local time zone) of it) of now
A: 2015/08/05 19:33:44
3 Likes
7

That link seems dead

8

I think you have to have to be signed into see it.

9

Very interesting solution, thanks!