Many thanks for your comments John and Mike I was getting results which confused me. I had muddled up the notion in AE meaning 'age exact' thinking it would output in years, months and days (which I didn't want) and, knowing that one date was approximate, made the mistake of thinking the RA variable was thus the correct alternative. Mea culpa. I was surprised though that the [RA:Child] function not only killed off the conditional clause, but also the date and the following memo. When I came to output the same sentence to Word rather than the screen, using the Individual Narrative report, I got a slightly different response. In this instance the memo was converted into a footer comment which I understand to occur when a memo exists but there is no [M] function in the sentence structure. So, I don't understand that. It brings me back to a worry I had many years ago and had forgotten about. You rarely know beforehand when to apply an [RA] or an [RE] function (and presumably an [A] or [AE] function) as you generally don't know the completeness of the two dates which will be involved for the calculation. Nor can you use you a conditional condition in a sentence to select one or the other. Therefore whilst being a really useful function, it seems flawed for use in a general sentence structure, unless other people have found a way round this? The only way I can think of managing these two conditions (2 complete dates vs. not 2 complete dates) would be to create a separate sentence for each and then remember to select the correct one each time? It is a bit of hassle as one has to remember that a particular sentence has an age function in it each time. Also, that at a later time, one might improve an approximate date with new information and forget to change the necessary sentence and tag with it? Are there any better ideas? Yes, I don't have access to the [SA] function in 7.4 but does this have a similar issue relating to the completeness of the dates? I also noticed in passing that when using the [RE:Child] function, TMG gives the result as "He was 5 years when ..." when SS gives "He was 4 years when ..". (I obviously need to add the word 'old' to the sentence). Nick Sentence structure read (at the time): [:CR:][:CR:][:TAB:]<He was [RA:Child] when> his parents divorced<[D]>. <[M]>

On 6/12/2015 6:38 AM, Nick Shelley via wrote: > I was getting results which confused me. I had muddled up the > notion in AE meaning 'age exact' thinking it would output in years, > months and days (which I didn't want) and, knowing that one date was > approximate, made the mistake of thinking the RA variable was thus the > correct alternative. Mea culpa. Nick, you didn't muddy it at all - the definition of the variable is very muddy. It's really two different variables. If both the primary birth date and the tag date are full days, it becomes the "Exact Age" variable, working as you recall. But if either is a partial date (when [A] produces no output) it becomes the "Estimated Age" variable producing the year only. No wonder users are confused. > I was surprised though that the [RA:Child] function not only killed > off the conditional clause, but also the date and the following memo. It should kill the conditional clause. I don't understand what happened to the rest. > When I came to output the same sentence to Word rather than the screen, > using the Individual Narrative report, I got a slightly different > response. In this instance the memo was converted into a footer comment > which I understand to occur when a memo exists but there is no [M] > function in the sentence structure. So, I don't understand that. First, this happens only when the report option to put Memos not in the sentence in the footnotes is checked - an option that I think should have been removed years ago because of all the grief it causes. But no doubt others will disagree. <g> But why it applies here I don't understand. There's some issue happening that's not apparent. > It brings me back to a worry I had many years ago and had forgotten > about. You rarely know beforehand when to apply an [RA] or an [RE] > function (and presumably an [A] or [AE] function) as you generally don't > know the completeness of the two dates which will be involved for the > calculation. Nor can you use you a conditional condition in a sentence > to select one or the other. Therefore whilst being a really useful > function, it seems flawed for use in a general sentence structure, > unless other people have found a way round this? I don't know of a solution. > The only way I can > think of managing these two conditions (2 complete dates vs. not 2 > complete dates) would be to create a separate sentence for each and then > remember to select the correct one each time? That would work, but has the risk you mention next. > It is a bit of hassle as > one has to remember that a particular sentence has an age function in it > each time. Also, that at a later time, one might improve an approximate > date with new information and forget to change the necessary sentence > and tag with it? Are there any better ideas? Terry Reigel

At 6/12/2015 06:38, you wrote: > It is a bit of hassle as >one has to remember that a particular sentence has an age function in it >each time. Also, that at a later time, one might improve an approximate >date with new information and forget to change the necessary sentence >and tag with it? Are there any better ideas? Not really. I keep a "cheat sheet" handy of things like this to review as I enter new data. In reality there is only one date that you need keep in mind when the data changes and that is the individual's birth date. If the Date of the Tag changes, you are already in that Tag and just need to check if the Sentence remains OK. The Birth Date can affect many Tags, so that means a more comprehensive review of other Tags fror that individual needs to be done when it changes (mostly from a partial to a full date). It is a mindset that you need to develop and the willingness to take the time to review and edit as necessary. Cheat sheets listing Tags that need checking can help (and somewhat speed up the review), but it is still a hassle. Lee Hoffman/KY