Creating Random Dates in ColdFusion: RandDateRange( dtFrom, dtTo )
Someone was just asking me how to create a random date in ColdFusion. More specifically, how to create a random date between two dates. The solutions for this is quite simple once you understand it. I have created a method named RandDateRange(). This method functions similar to RandRange( intFrom, intTo ) and actually uses that method under the hood. If you abstract generating a random date between two given dates, it comes down to picking a random point in time. We can create this random point by adding a random time span to the "From Date", making sure, of course, that this random time span does not give us a date past the desired "To Date".
The beauty of time spans in ColdFusion is that they can be represented as a single floating point number. This puts us in the perfect position to use RandRange() to create random time spans. To make sure that we do not create too large a timespan, our bottom range parameter will be zero and our top range parameter will be the difference in seconds between the two out lier dates. Therefore, if we get a random second value and add it to the "From Date", we know we can never go past the "To Date."
<cffunction name="RandDateRange" access="public" returntype="date" output="false"
hint="This returns a random date between the two given dates (inclusive).">
<!--- Define arguments. --->
<cfargument name="FromDate" type="date" required="true" />
<cfargument name="ToDate" type="date" required="true" />
<cfscript>
// Define the local scope.
var LOCAL = StructNew();
// Get the difference in seconds between the two dates.
LOCAL.TimeDifference = DateDiff(
"s",
ARGUMENTS.FromDate,
ARGUMENTS.ToDate
);
// Create a random time increment based on the second difference.
// The time span object is a representation of time-length in
// terms of a single floating-point number.
LOCAL.TimeIncrement = CreateTimeSpan(
0, // Days
0, // Hours
0, // Minutes
RandRange( // Seconds
// Our smallest possible time increment.
0,
// Our largest possible time increment that will not
// put us past the ToDate.
LOCAL.TimeDifference
)
);
// Get a new random date based on the FromDate and the random
// time span.
LOCAL.RandomDate = (ARGUMENTS.FromDate + LOCAL.TimeIncrement);
// This random date now is formatted like a TimeSpan object,
// meaning that it is in the form of one floating point number.
return( LOCAL.RandomDate );
</cfscript>
</cffunction>
Now to test it out. For the from and to dates, let's pick Now and one month from Now.
From: 2006-07-07
To: 2006-08-07
Now, get a random date between those to:
Random: 38931.4080093
As you can see above, the random date is in Time Span format (represented as a single floating point number). In order to fix that, all we have to do is run a date format on it. Now, keep in mind that ColdFusion still treats that as a valid date. You only need to change the formatting on it for display. You can add, diff, subtract all you want on the server side and its all good.
Formatted: 2006-08-02
Want to use code from this post? Check out the license.
Reader Comments
Nice!
Thanks for this, nice, tightly coded function that worked straight off the page. Integrated into a site in five minutes. You sire, are a champ.
Thanks
Shaun