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MonthNoFromLongName

Function MonthNoFromLongName(const aMonthName: String): integer

Example​

procedure ScriptEvent(var Value: variant);
begin
  Value := MonthNoFromLongName('January'); // 1 when the host's long name for month 1 is January
end;

Usage​

MonthNoFromLongName maps a long month name from global host format settings to 1-12, returning zero when no name matches.

Parameters

NameTypeDescription
aMonthNameString, constComplete long month name to find using a case-insensitive comparison against global FormatSettings.LongMonthNames.

Returns

An Integer from 1 through 12 for the first matching month, or 0 when no entry matches.

Behaviour

  • Matching is case-insensitive and returns the first of the 12 global month-name entries that compares equal.
  • The entire input must match. Leading/trailing spaces, extra punctuation or a partial name are not trimmed or accepted.
  • Successful English examples such as January depend on the process's current global month names; the routine is not fixed to English.
  • Input that matches none of the configured long names returns zero rather than raising.

Errors

Ordinary no-match input is reported as zero. Unexpected allocation or runtime string-comparison exceptions are not caught by Velox.

Usage notes

Treat the accepted names as deployment-locale data. When a configuration contract requires a stable machine-independent token, prefer numeric month values or validate the expected locale outside this helper.

Additional Technical Info​

MonthNoFromLongName searches the Velox process's global long-month-name array and returns the matching one-based month number. Matching is case-insensitive but otherwise requires the complete locale-specific name; an unmatched value returns zero.

The example is source-reviewed and intentionally locale-dependent. It was not executed by the documentation workflow.

Implementation

Velox's date-tools import binds to the Velox wrapper. The wrapper constructs a local TFormatSettings for the Windows system-default locale, but does not use that variable. It instead passes the process-wide global FormatSettings.LongMonthNames array to Delphi System.StrUtils.IndexText, then adds one to the returned zero-based index. IndexText returns -1 when no match exists, producing the public zero sentinel.

Edge cases and quirks

  • The locally created system-default TFormatSettings is ignored. Actual results come from mutable global FormatSettings, which may represent the user locale or a host override rather than the system-default value suggested by the wrapper.
  • For non-ASCII text on Windows, the case-insensitive comparison uses the current user locale. The comparison locale and the global month-name source can therefore be affected by different process/host configuration paths.
  • The function does not accept short names; use MonthNoFromShortName for the separate short-name array.
  • Zero means no match and is not a valid month number.

Side effects

The wrapper reads process-wide locale state and creates a temporary local format-settings record. It does not modify the input or global settings.

Performance and concurrency

At most 12 case-insensitive full-string comparisons are performed. Concurrent mutation of global FormatSettings can make results inconsistent across calls; host code should not change global locale data while scripts are running.

Related entries

External references

Created 2026-07-15