text2time()

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ID:97356
 
Jun 23 2010, 10:01 am
Applies to:DM Language
Status: Open
Issue hasn't been assigned a status value.
As initially discussed here: http://www.byond.com/developer/forum/?id=751145

I believe it may be beneficial to have a proc that does the opposite to time2text(). For example, you may call text2time("23-06-2010 11:59:00") which would return tenths of seconds since the start of BYOND era (Jan 1 2000).

The proc would allow developers to make events occur at specified times/dates within their project. PHP has a similar proc, and much info on how such a function could work could be seen there: http://php.net/strtotime
Jul 11 2010, 7:34 pm
This'd really help with my project.
Jul 13 2010, 9:30 am
I do not believe BYOND is capable of doing this to be honest Murrawhip. I was just attempting a way to manipulate input date into ticks to compare, however it isn't going to work because of the massively large number which Byond can't handle.
Jul 13 2010, 9:46 am
Leur wrote:
I was just attempting a way to manipulate input date into ticks to compare, however it isn't going to work because of the massively large number which Byond can't handle.

BYOND uses those massively large numbers to convert to text in the first place, it should give you similar results when working backwards.
If you would format your dates for comparisons when converting them, then you wouldn't even need to reverse the process.
Jul 13 2010, 10:06 am (Edited on Jul 14 2010, 6:54 am)
 
/*
Sorry it only follows one set for now.
This is basically a demo anyways, just to get the timestamp of the dates.

Month = "January-December"
Day = "1-31"
Year = "2000-Infinity"

text2time("#January #1 #2032")
#- required (Just a demo, get over it)


*/
mob/verb/l(a as text)
    text2time(a)
proc
    sec2stamp(a) .=a*10
    min2sec(a) .=a*60
    hour2min(a) .=a*60
    day2hour(a) .=a*24
    mon2day(a) .=round(a*30.437)
    year2mon(a) .=a*12
    month2num(m)
        m = lowertext(m)
        switch(m)
            if("january") .=1;if("february") .=2;if("march") .=3;if("april") .=4
            if("may") .=5;if("june") .=6;if("july") .=7;if("august") .=8
            if("september") .=9;if("october") .=10;if("november") .=11;if("december") .=12
    text2time(s)
        var/month = text2num(month2num(copytext(s,findtext(s,"#")+1,findtext(s," "))))-1//beginning of realtime
        s = copytext(s,findtext(s, " ")+1)
        var/day = text2num(copytext(s,findtext(s,"#")+1,findtext(s," ")))-1//beginning of realtime
        s = copytext(s,findtext(s, " ")+1)
        var/year = text2num(copytext(s,findtext(s,"#")+1))-2000//beginning of realtime
        month = month + year2mon(year)
        day = day + mon2day(month)
        var/stamp = sec2stamp(min2sec(hour2min(day2hour(day))))

        //Example purposes only outputting in proc.
        world<<"[stamp] = [time2text(stamp,"Month DD YYYY")]"
        world<<"[world.realtime] = [time2text(world.realtime,"Month DD YYYY")]"


This shows what I mean :/
Inputting #July #13 #2010 outputs:
3.33072e+009 = July 21 2010
3.32363e+009 = July 13 2010

#August #20 #2030 =
9.68717e+009 = September 11 2030

So it's close both times, however not very accurate. Unless I overlooked somethign in my code (besides the month average, that will throw it off just a bit.) :/



--EDIT-- Changed the average up a bit, and it provides accuracy within 1 day now.
Jul 13 2010, 2:07 pm
At the moment I've resorted to running it through Javascript, with Date.parse() which is getting the spot-on value.
It'd just be nice to have the function in DM for speediness.
Jul 13 2010, 5:02 pm
world.realtime var

This is the time (in 1/10 seconds) since 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 2000 (also known as the BYOND era).

You want fries with that?
Jul 13 2010, 6:53 pm
Warlord Fred wrote:
world.realtime var

This is the time (in 1/10 seconds) since 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 2000 (also known as the BYOND era).

You want fries with that?

This helps how?
Jul 14 2010, 6:56 am
Changed the code below... Provides accuracy within 1 day now!

Input:
#July #14 #2034
Output:
1.08976e+010 = July 13 2034
Feb 4 2011, 2:31 pm
I'm not sure when votes were added or what they really mean, but I don't think this is a very good feature request. Unless you have players typing in datetime strings, you can just store the time as the number of ticks and convert it to a string when needed. I can't think of many situations where you need to convert a datetime string back to a number where you didn't have access to that number in the first place.
Feb 4 2011, 4:17 pm
"When would you like this event to take place?"
-selects the date on a calender-
Feb 4 2011, 4:22 pm
The only case where you'd have to parse a string is when you give the user a textbox to type the date in. If you have a calendar where they can select a date you can easily associate the numeric timestamp with each day on the calendar.

BYOND's handling of timestamps is lacking but this can often be avoided and demands to be handled by a library. There's no reason why this has to be a built-in feature.
Feb 4 2011, 4:26 pm
If you can provide me with a library that would be able to convert a text date to BYOND's time system, natively, I would gladly drop support for this feature request.
Feb 4 2011, 4:28 pm
Forum_account wrote:
If you have a calendar where they can select a date you can easily associate the numeric timestamp with each day on the calendar.

Could you please explain how? I'm a DM nub.
Feb 4 2011, 4:37 pm
Murrawhip wrote:
Forum_account wrote:
If you have a calendar where they can select a date you can easily associate the numeric timestamp with each day on the calendar.

Could you please explain how? I'm a DM nub.

Show me the calendar date selector you're using.

If you can provide me with a library that would be able to convert a text date to BYOND's time system, natively, I would gladly drop support for this feature request.

You say that like it's not possible. There might not be a library that does this but it's certainly possible to write one. If it's possible for the staff to add a C++ implementation of a function to do this then it's possible for us to do this with DM. At the very least you can find an implementation of such a function online and build a .dll to do the conversion for you.
Feb 4 2011, 4:42 pm
I'm definitely not proposing it is impossible, and it would of course be possible by using a DLL. I am not however experienced in using DLLs, and many functions present within BYOND could be accomplished with a DLL - does that mean they should not be supported by BYOND?

Without a DLL however, I've yet to see anyone propose a valid method of obtaining a byond time from a string-based time.
"associate a numeric timestamp with each day on a calendar" does not accomplish that, as I do not want days alone. I want to-the-second accuracy. PHP has it, and it has numerous valuable uses for games.
Feb 4 2011, 4:45 pm
Murrawhip wrote:
"associate a numeric timestamp with each day on a calendar" does not accomplish that, as I do not want days alone. I want to-the-second accuracy.

If you just want to set up an event calendar that's possible, and pretty easy. You just set the time-stamp for when the event will occur (to the second if need be), and then wait for the current time's time-stamp to match.
Feb 4 2011, 4:46 pm
Falacy wrote:
Murrawhip wrote:
"associate a numeric timestamp with each day on a calendar" does not accomplish that, as I do not want days alone. I want to-the-second accuracy.

If you just want to set up an event calendar that's possible, and pretty easy. You just set the time-stamp for when the event will occur (to the second if need be), and then wait for the current time's time-stamp to match.

How do you get the time stamp of when it will occur?
Feb 4 2011, 4:47 pm
"associate a numeric timestamp with each day on a calendar" does not accomplish that, as I do not want days alone

In almost all cases you have access to the number. The only way you get the textual timestamp is by converting the number to text. If you have access to the number you don't need a text2time proc, you can just remember the number. The calendar was your example of a case where you have the text string and not the number.
Feb 4 2011, 4:49 pm (Edited on Feb 4 2011, 4:56 pm)
Murrawhip wrote:
How do you get the time stamp of when it will occur?

(preferably GUI) input from the user, convert it yourself to a time-stamp? "Feb 14, 2011 @ 12:00" could easily be put together from a few simple clicks by a user. Then just wait for time2text(world.timeofday,"MMM DD, YYYY @ hh:mm") to match it and trigger the event.
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