How to assign the earliest date among 4 given dates?

[CheDee317]

I have 4 solutions with different expiry dates and I need to assign the earliest expiry date among the 4 for the final product.  I am using Acrobat Pro and any help is greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[try67]

Let's say the fields are named ExpiryDate1 to ExpireDate4, and that their date format is mm/dd/yyyy. You can use this code as the custom calculation script of the field where you want to display the earlier of the four values:

var dateFormat = "mm/dd/yyyy";
var dates = [];
for (var i=1; i<=4; i++) {
    var f = this.getField("ExpiryDate"+i);
    var v = f.valueAsString;
    if (v!="") dates.push(util.scand(dateFormat, v));
}
if (dates.length==0) event.value = "";
else {
    dates.sort(function(a, b){return a.getTime() - b.getTime()});
    event.value = util.printd(dateFormat, dates[0]);
}

[CheDee317]

Tried to substitute with what you've posted but couldn't get it right.  It's not showing any result.  I think I'm not doing it correctly.  Here's my script:

var dateFormat = "yyyy-mm-dd"; 

var dates = ["801080EXP","801016EXP","801017EXP","801018EXP"]; 

for (var i=1; i<=4; i++) { 

     var f = this.getField(["ExpDate"]+i); 

      var v = f.valueAsString; 

      if (v!="") dates.push(util.scand(dateFormat, v)); 

} 

if (dates.length==0) event.value = ""; 

else { 

1. dates.sort(function(a, b){return a.getTime() - b.getTime()}); 

event.value = util.printd(dateFormat, dates[0]); 

  }

the enclosed var dates are the field names for each component's expiry date and the finished product expiry date field name is "ExpDate".

Sorry for such a nuisance and thanks a lot for taking the time to reply!

[try67 · Accepted solution]

The dates array is for the values. If you want to hard-code the field names then use this:

var dateFormat = "mm/dd/yyyy";
var fields = ["801080EXP","801016EXP","801017EXP","801018EXP"];
var dates = [];
for (var i in fields) {
    var f = this.getField(fields);
    var v = f.valueAsString;
    if (v!="") dates.push(util.scand(dateFormat, v));
}
if (dates.length==0) event.value = "";
else {
    dates.sort(function(a, b){return a.getTime() - b.getTime()});
    event.value = util.printd(dateFormat, dates[0]);
}

[CheDee317]

it worked!  a million thanks to you. !