Trying to get emailed schedule added to iCal automatically

Question

I am currently trying to get my schedule which is emailed to me to automatically be added to iCal.
This is the format that my schedule comes in:
Dec 30: Monday (Not Scheduled)
Dec 31: Tuesday 12:30PM - 09:00PM
Jan 01: Wednesday (Not Scheduled)
Jan 02: Thursday (Not Scheduled)
Jan 03: Friday 12:30PM - 09:00PM
Jan 04: Saturday 03:00PM - 10:00PM
Jan 05: Sunday 04:00PM - 10:00PM
this is the code that i am currently trying to use but it does not seem to want to work
<code>
using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
tell application "Mail"
repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
set recivedmessage to content of eachMessage
try
set themonths to "August"
display dialog "Month is" & themonths
--display dialog recivedmessage
display dialog (characters 103 thru 554 of recivedmessage) as string
--display dialog ((characters 103 thru 108 of recivedmessage) as string) & ((characters 80 thru 86 of recivedmessage) as string)
tell application "iCal"
tell calendar "Work"
set theDate to current date
--get the month specified in the email
set givencase to ((characters 103 thru 105 of recivedmessage) as string)
--ignoring case and white space
if givencase is equal to "Aug" then
set themonth to "August"
else if givencase is equal to "Sep" then
set themonth to "September"
display dialog "Month is" & themonth
end if
--end ignoring
--create a date day, month, number, year
set myDate to ((characters 110 thru 116 of recivedmessage) as string) & ", " & themonths & " " & ((characters 107 thru 107 of recivedmessage) as string) & ((characters 80 thru 86 of recivedmessage) as string) & "6:14:36 PM"
make new event at end with properties {description:"info", summary:"Event ", location:"Event Location", start date:myDate, allday event:true}
end tell
end tell
display dialog "This is my format which is not working" & (myDate)
display dialog "This is the format " & (current date)
end try
end repeat
end tell
end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from
</code>

Answer 1

There are some very specific rules when creating dates from strings in AppleScript and your code doesn't follow them, which is probably why it's failing.
The specifics are touched on in the recent AppleScript release notes, but the upshot is that crafting a date from a string is tricky, at best, partly due to the numerous date formats employed around the world.
The recommended solution involves starting with a date object such as current date and changing the elements you want. This is guaranteed to work better than any string.
In addition to that I don't recommend using offsets in the text as the basis for extracting the date from the message. It's prone to errors.
I'd rework this something like:
using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
  tell application "Mail"
    repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
    set recivedmessage to content of eachMessage
      repeat with eachLine in receivedMessage -- iterate through each line in the message
      try
        set thisDate to (get current date) -- start with a valid date
        set {m, d} to {word 1 of eachLine, word 2 of eachLine} -- get the first two words of each line
        -- handle the day:
        set day of thisDate to d
        -- there is an easier way of doing this, but I'm lazy:
        -- handle the months:
        if m = "Jan" then
          set month of thisDate to 1
        else if m = "Feb" then
          set month of thisDate to 2
        -- and so on…
        end if
        -- rest of code to add the event to iCal goes here
        end try
      end repeat -- for each line
    end repeat -- for each message
  end tell
end perform mail action
At the end of this, you'll end up with a valid date object that you can pass to iCal as the event start date, rather than the string object you're trying to use now.