Re: this cannot be then best way

g wrote:
: I have a date mydate and i want to subtract X working days off

: i was thinking of something like

: loop while x > 0
: if to_char(mydate,'d') < 6 then
: x = x -1
: endif
: mydate :mydate - 1
: endloop

two ideas come to mind

-1-

Keep a table that lists the dates of the holidays and weekends dates for the year (call them off_days)

        first_guess = mydate - x/5*7 # account for weekends

	non_working = (select count(off_days) between guess and mydate)	
	new_guess = mydate - non_working
	iterate until the new_guess doesn't change

-2-

fill a table with every work day of the year, and for each day save the number of days worked up to that day (the_date, worked_days)

given mydate,
lookup the number of days worked in the year up to that date

        select worked_days from year where the_date= mydate subtract x to find days we want to have worked (call it wanted) select the date that has that many days worked

        select the_date from year where worked_days = wanted

$0.10 Received on Fri Jul 14 2006 - 17:31:49 CDT