topic Re: normalize date in python in Python Questions

normalize date in python

WilliamIde — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:31:51 GMT

My Management has directed that I normalize some of our tables. So I have to add some new fields. OK done. One of the new fields is Incident_date. Well existing is a field called report date. About half of those fields are NULL. There is also a field call create_date. So what I want to do is if the report date has data I want to use that, if not then I want to use create_date.

So I fired up calculate field. Selected the table and selected Incident as the field. Clicked on Python, and entered:

def CalIncident(Repdat, CrteDat):
if ( Repdat == NULL) :
return CrtDat
else
return Repdat

Other window
ReportDate =
CalIncident(!ReportDate!, !CreateDate!)

I don't think it understands NULL in this context. Any idea what I should use?

Thanks

Re: normalize date in python

AndrewChapkowski — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 09:21:33 GMT

Try using None instead of NULL in your python code.

See this python documentation on the null object: http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/lib/bltin-null-object.html

Re: normalize date in python

benk — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:19:52 GMT

First you forgot : behind else, maybe this is your error.

If this isn't the problem I think it could work if you just test if Repdat is true:

if (Repdat): return CrtDat
else: return Repdat

Or you can try the other way:

if len(Repdat)>0: return Repdat
else: return CrtDat