Date formatting in xpath

Question

Hi,
I have a requirement to display the nearest date in the xml using xpath. So i used the following function to display the nearest date and it works,
min(/virtualMachine/diskVolume/capacityDepletionDate/xs:date(xs:dateTime(.)))
Now the prob is, I need to display the date in specific format. I need in the format of Aug 20, 2012.
But the above function gives me result as 2012-08-20+05:30. So could someone help me to format this output in the xml?
Thanks,
Anand.

Answer 1

Hi,
Which XQuery processor are you using?
Maybe it already implements the fn:format-date() function?
If not, you have to use a custom function :
declare function local:format-date($dt as xs:date) as xs:string
let $months := ('Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec')
return concat( $months[fn:month-from-date($dt)]
              , fn:day-from-date($dt)
              , fn:year-from-date($dt) )
let $dt := xs:date("2012-08-20+05:30")
return local:format-date($dt)fn:month-from-date and alike have their counterparts working with dateTime datatype (fn:month-from-dateTime etc.), so ultimately, you can also pass directly a dateTime to the function without having to first truncate it.