convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

[Southlander]

Hi All,

I have data that has date and times info like so:

1/21/2012 2:56:58AM
1/21/2012 3:09:32PM

I can use mktime_t to convert this to a time_t value I think (after chopping the data into the correct chunks). The only thing is the AM and PM formatting. mktime_t would want the input in military format I believe. Does anyone have any handy code snippets for converting 12hour time formats to 24hour?

Thanks,

[Jonathan-Driftwood]

Re: convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

Hi there Sean, haven't heard from you since '04. Glad to see your still scripting!

What about something like "if PM then + 12" on the hour?

Jonathan

[Southlander]

Re: convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

Hey there Jonathan. Good to hear from you. Yes, that would work fine. Thanks for the tip.

[RayYates]

Re: convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

These functions return date and time strings.

With some small effort Format_Time() could be adopted by storing the following in a variable and adding a few conditionals.

time_t_hour(l.time_val, l.time_zone)

<MvFUNCTION NAME="Format_Date" PARAMETERS="time_val" STANDARDOUTPUTLEVEL="">    <MvASSIGN NAME="l.time_zone" VALUE="{ timezone() }">
    <MvFUNCRETURN VALUE="{
            padl(time_t_month(l.time_val, l.time_zone),2,'0') $ '/' $
            padl(time_t_dayofmonth(l.time_val, l.time_zone),2,'0') $ '/'
            $ time_t_year(l.time_val, l.time_zone) }">
</MvFUNCTION>

<MvFUNCTION NAME="Format_Time" PARAMETERS="time_val" STANDARDOUTPUTLEVEL="">
        <MvASSIGN NAME="l.time_zone" VALUE="{ timezone() }">
    <MvFUNCRETURN VALUE="{
        padl(time_t_hour(l.time_val, l.time_zone),2,'0') $ ':' $
        padl(time_t_min(l.time_val, l.time_zone),2,'0') $ ':' $
        padl(time_t_sec(l.time_val, l.time_zone),2,'0') }">
</MvFUNCTION>

FYI If you are doing this in the context of a Merchant page template, Toolbelt has exhaustive date time formatting and conversion functions.

[Southlander]

Re: convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

FYI If you are doing this in the context of a Merchant page template, Toolbelt has exhaustive date time formatting and conversion functions.

Thanks Ray. No this is not Merchant related. It is a standalone script app I am writing to import some point of sale data and do some custom analysis. Our POS exports flatfile data and formats the date/time of the transactions in the above mentioned manner. So I am wanting to do the following: (appreciate any advice on whether my approach is bad or not)

Covert the date/time in this format (1/21/2012 2:56:58AM) to a time_t value. Then load that into an array that is indexed on that time_t value so that I can build an ordered list of transactions from earliest to latest. Apply the analysis logic, which depends on the transactions being sorted in order, and then covert from time_t back to a mm/dd/yyyy xx:xx:xx am/pm format to output report data in a human readable format. Sound ok?

Thanks,
Sean

[Scott McCollough]

Re: convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

When you convert to time_t, why do you need to lose the original value of human readable time? Couldn't you store both?

Also, unless you really need to, you don't have to convert to time_t. You're already parsing the date/time, why not just reconstruct the string as yyyy $ mm $ dd $ (hh * ((l.meridian EQ 'PM')*12)) $ mm $ ss? Make sure to '0'-pad everything to keep it all consistent.

Typing out loud...

[Southlander]

Re: convert dates and times in 12hour format into time_t value

I am intending to use time_t because I am not storing any of this imported data into a database (where a DATE field type can be create and indexed upon). I will just suck it all into an array and sort it numerically based on time_t. I will have the original human readable date and time loaded into variables obviously to do the conversion. So then when I say convert back, I really just mean eval that original variable set to get the report printout while using the equivalent time_t value just for sorting. This seems more efficient to me than somehow sorting an array based on xx/xx/xxxx tt:tt:tt am/pm. In fact I am not even sure how one would do that without sorting date, then sub-sorting the time after converting from 12hr to 24hr. Just seems more complex than time_t.

[dgurtner]

From looking at the links that refer to time on mivascript.com,
http://www.mivascript.com/topic/system-variables.html
http://www.mivascript.com/item/mivas...me_t_hour.html
http://www.mivascript.com/item/mivas...ions/padl.html

it looks like I can build a current military time using something like this...

<mvt:assign name="g.curr_hour" value="padl(s.dyn_tm_hour,2,0)" />
<mvt:assign name="g.curr_min" value="padl(s.dyn_tm_min,2,0)" />
&mvt:global:curr_hour;&mvt:global:curr_min;