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Archiver > TMG > 2006-08 > 1154661069


From: "DeAnna Burghart" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Date or no Date
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 20:11:09 -0700
In-Reply-To: <d83756d50608031436w204c0959h55e9b6ca59262813@mail.gmail.com>


>>I'm having a brain cramp and can't get a handle on how to do this. I want
my sentence to print the date if there is one or a phrase if there isn't.
But
if I can't stop the phrase from printing whether or not there is a date. I
know I can use different roles for dated or undated. But I don't want to.<<

Roles would be the most reliable way I can think of to do it -- I don't
think there's a variable set up that will do what you want. All of the other
possibilities I can think of are rather kludgy. Without knowing the context
of what you're trying to do, here's what comes to mind:

1) Put the phrase in the date field of the tag, as an irregular date. You
could maintain the proper order with a sort date, and use whatever phrasing
in the date field. This a) is quite ugly, b) might not gedcom correctly, c)
offends my sense of order ... but it is a possibility.

2) Plunk the phrase you want in a memo segment in your tag, and insert the
proper memo segment call in the sentence. i.e. "<[P]> was fully researched
on <[D]><[M3]>" where your memo is " || ||as of the date of this report."
This is probably the easiest solution, but would require keeping your memo
segments straight.

3) Same as above, but using one of the detail segments. While this is
possible, I would recommend against it because it mixes apples and oranges
(or in this case, dates and locations) and as such it again offends my sense
of order and might not gedcom correctly.

4) This is sort of the Ultimate Super Kludge(TM), and assumes that there is
only one possible principal in the tag. Set up a non-person person whose
name is the phrase that you want to appear in the report (i.e. surname null,
first name "as of the date of this report" or whatever). For any tag that
does not have a date assigned, assign this non-person as P2. Then use the
contruction that Karl recommended, except like this:

blah blah blah blah <[D]|[PF]> blah blah blah blah

That *should* tell TMG to fish out the non-person's "name" if he's present,
and just use the other variable (the date) if there's only one principal.
However, it again mixes apples and oranges (names and narrative), requires
you to remember to remove the second principal if/when you assign a date,
and assumes that there is only one principal on the tag. Still, as with the
others, it's an option.


None of these solutions are anywhere near as elegant as a role would be, but
since you said you didn't want to do that, I offer them up for what they're
worth. Perhaps one will suit.

DeAnna

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DeAnna Burghart
TMG Shortcuts, Variables and Report Cheat Sheets (Word and PDF)
http://members.cox.net/danieleb765/genealogy/

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