Gdatetime$

This function converts a datetime string in canonical format to a DateTime value.

The canonical string must be formatted as follows on 20 characters:

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ

Where:

YYYY: 4 digit year
MM: 2 digit month (01-12)
DD: 2 digit day of the month (01-31)
hh: 2 digit hour (00-23)
mm: 2 digit minute (00-59)
ss: 2 digit second (00-59)

The values are expressed in GMT timezone and the string is terminated by a Z which stands for GMT.

Syntax

gdatetime$(str)

Examples

A simple example:

MYDATETIME=gdatetime$("2012-10-03T07:55:30Z") : # Constant DateTimeMYDATETIME=gdatetime$(DATETIME_STR) : # Transforms the string DATETIME_STR

A complex example with more data types:

# This example gets the current timestamp and converts it to a datetime.# It is equivalent to the single instruction MY_DATETIME=datetime$ !!!# First we declare some variablesLocal Decimal MY_TIMESTAMPLocal Date MY_DATELocal Integer MY_TIMELocal Char MY_CHAR_DATETIME(20)Local DATETIME MY_DATETIME # timestamp$ gives the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, as a string.# We store it in a decimal (Integer would be out of range).MY_TIMESTAMP=val(timestamp$)# Compute the date.MY_DATE=[1/1/1970]+int(MY_TIMESTAMP/(24*3600*1000))# Compute the number of seconds since the beginning of the day.MY_TIME=mod(MY_TIMESTAMP/1000,24*3600)# Format the canonical string.MY_CHAR_DATETIME = format$("D:4Y[-]2M[-]2D[T]",MY_DATE)& + format$("N0:2#",int(MY_TIME/3600))& + ":" + format$("N0:2#",int(mod(MY_TIME,3600)/60))& + ":" + format$("N0:2#",int(mod(MY_TIME,60)))+"Z"# Now convert it to a datetime valueMY_DATETIME=gdatetime$(MY_CHAR_DATETIME)

Comments

The [num$](../4gl/num$.md) function converts in the other direction, from dateTime to canonical string:

MY_DATETIME=gdatetime$(num$(datetime$))

This is equivalent to:

MY_DATETIME=datetime$

If the input string has an invalid format, gdatetime$ returns a null datetime and no error is created. For example:

BAD_DATETIME1=gdatetime$(left$(num$(datetime$),19)) : # A character is missing (20 characters expected)BAD_DATETIME=2gdatetime$("Hello world") : # Obviously not a datetime!!!STRING1=num$(BAD_DATETIME1)STRING2=num$(BAD_DATETIME2)# STRING1 and STRING2 are both "0000-00-00T00:00:00Z"

Syntax

Examples

Comments

See also