;function datestring returns the string of the current system date and time.
;Use is as follows:
;                        out=datestring(x)
;Where
;  input |   x = any character (couldn't get program to run w/o it)
; output | out = string of yyyymmmddhhmm where mmm is month in 
;                       3-character lower case alpha format (e.g.:feb)
;
;Written by BWBerger 2/17/00
;Modified by BWB 3/2/00 to fix problem where dd had a blank space instead
;  of a '0' placeholder for days < 10 (ie want a continuous string output
;  like 2000mar021433 not 2000mar 21433).

function datestring,x

;output of systime(0) is:
;DOW MON DD HH:MM:SS YEAR
;012345678901234567892123

a=systime(0)

;get necessary pieces of systime output
year=strmid(a,20,4) ;4-digit
mon=strmid(a,4,3)   ;3-digit alpha
dd=strmid(a,8,2)    ;1- or 2-digit
if fix(dd) lt 10 then dd='0'+strtrim(string(fix(dd)),2) ;new line 3/2/00
hhmm=strmid(a,11,2)+strmid(a,14,2)

;concatenate and convert to all lower case
out=strlowcase(year+mon+dd+hhmm)

return,out
end