Creating a variable that contains the value of the Modification Date (Long) system variable

Hi Julie, These tasks are rarely simple, but they are fun anyway. First some background: with a user variable, it is easy to get it's value, because the definition itself is usually its value. Say you have a user variable named "DocDate"; you can run this to get its value:

#target framemaker

var doc = app.ActiveDoc;

varFmt = doc.GetNamedVarFmt ("DocDate");
if (varFmt.ObjectValid () === 1) {
    alert (varFmt.Fmt);
}

Of course, if you have used character format building blocks in the definition, these will be displayed as well. With system variables, things are different. The definitions consist of building blocks and literal text so to get the actual display value, you have to insert the variable somewhere in the document. The code below does exactly that.

#target framemaker

// Make a constant for the points metric value.
var PT = 65536;

var doc = app.ActiveDoc;
alert (getSystemVariableValue ("Modification Date (Long)", doc));

function getSystemVariableValue (varName, doc) {
    
    var masterPage, textFrame, pgf, textLoc, varObj, value = "";

    // Get the first master page in the document.
    masterPage = doc.FirstMasterPageInDoc;
    // Add a temporary text frame to the master page.
    textFrame = doc.NewTextFrame (masterPage.PageFrame);
    textFrame.Width  = 288 * PT;
    // Add the variable to the first paragraph in the temporary text frame.
    pgf = textFrame.FirstPgf;
    textLoc = new TextLoc (pgf, 0);
    varObj = doc.NewAnchoredFormattedVar (varName, textLoc);
    if (varObj.ObjectValid () === 1) {
        // Get the value of the variable.
        value = getText (varObj.TextRange, doc);
    }
    // Delete the temporary text frame.
    textFrame.Delete ();
    
    return value;
}

function getText (textObj, doc) {
    
    // Gets the text from the text object or text range.

    var text = "", textItems, i;
    
    // Get a list of the strings in the text object or text range.
    if (textObj.constructor.name !== "TextRange") {
        textItems = textObj.GetText(Constants.FTI_String);
    } else {
        textItems = doc.GetTextForRange(textObj, Constants.FTI_String);
    }
    // Concatenate the strings.
    for (i = 0; i < textItems.len; i += 1) {
        text += (textItems.sdata);

    }
    return text; // Return the text
}

I have most of the code in a couple of functions for portability. The getText function is a utility function that gets the text from a text object (paragraph, text frame, table cell, etc.) or a text range. The getSystemVariableValue function does the majority of the work needed; the comments should give you an overview of what is happening.

The next step will be to insert the text retrieved on line 7 and insert it into a custom marker. I will do this in another reply. Please test the code above and let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thanks. -Rick