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Date, Time,
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Time Add and Subtract,
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and
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Time Conversion Blocks
These are the various date and time related blocks available in the Time group of the block library:
date:
grabsextracts just the date
partportion of a date time value
dateTimeAdd:
addadds a duration (hrs, mins, or secs)
fromto a dateTime
dateTimeSub:
substract asubtracts a duration (hrs, mins, or secs) from a dateTime
dateToNumber: converts the date into a number
dateToString: converts a part of date into a string
dtToDtAdd:
addadds one dateTime to another dateTime; results in a duration of minutes or seconds
dtToDtSub:
subtractsubtracts one dateTime from another dateTime; results in a duration of minutes or seconds
now:
getgets the current dateTime for the host
siteDateTime:
getgets the current date and time for the site associated with the target Ref of the bline program
time: extracts just the time
partportion of a date time value
timeToMinutes: converts a time value to a number of minutes
timeToTimeAdd:
addadds one time to another time; results in a duration of minutes
or secondstimeToTimeSub:
subracts onesubtracts one time from another time; results in a duration of minutes
or seconds
Some blocks have inputs or results in dateTime format, while others in simple time format. Blocks that require a time format input might not work if a dateTime value is used as the input.
dateTime example: 2019-07-04 14:39:15:149 (date and time with milliseconds)
time example: 14:39:15 (just hours:minutes:seconds)
The Blocks can be found in the Block Library in the Time group.
Date
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and Time
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All the date & time blocks accept only one parameter, but some have an extra option hidden inside them. The user can reach that by clicking on the block.
Using the Date/Time Block
After the user has created or opened a new or existing program, in the Runcycle, the date/time block can be used inside different other blocks like: SET, IF, RETURN....
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Blocks
These four blocks provide or extract a value of time or dateTime, depending on your usage and need.
date: extracts just the date portion of a date time value
time: extracts just the time portion of a date time value
now: gets the current date and time from the host PC where the program is running
siteDateTime: gets the current date and time for the site associated with the target Ref of the bline program. Once the SET block has been added, the user will just type siteDateTime and the block will appear as an option.
(Click to enlarge)
Once the block has been selected it will look like this:
Example Date/Time Setup
The above screenshot represents several examples of the date/time block usage.
- a tag will get the date and time value from the site associated with the target Ref of the program
- another tag will get only the time value from a date & time tag(the one create at the first step)
- then using the dateToString block the value only for the weekday and month are picked from the same time
- finally using the dateToNumber block there are several numbers collected from the same tag for
Click on the link below to watch a video demonstration on how the above example was set up!
Time Add and Subtract Blocks
dateTimeAdd: adds a duration (days, hrs, mins, or secs) to a dateTime
dateTimeSub: subtracts a duration (days, hrs, mins, or secs) from a dateTime
dtToDtAdd: adds one dateTime to another dateTime; results in a duration of minutes or seconds. Note: This is not to be considered a traditional add function. Rather, the result is in fact an invert of a subtraction of the two inputs. Meaning, if the difference is 30 minutes, then the result is written as -30 min. So it is actually subtracting the two inputs and then inverting the math sign of the result.
dtToDtSub: subtracts one dateTime from another dateTime; results in a duration of minutes or seconds
timeToTimeAdd: adds one time to another time; results in a duration of minutes or seconds. Note: This is not to be considered a traditional add function. Rather, the result is in fact an invert of a subtraction of the two inputs. Meaning, if the difference is 30 minutes, then the result is written as -30 min. So it is actually subtracting the two inputs and then inverting the math sign of the result.
timeToTimeSub: subracts one time from another time; results in a duration of minutes or seconds
Time Conversion Blocks
dateToNumber: converts the date into a number. This block extracts a selected portion of the date and converts it to a number that represents that Year, Month, Day, etc.
As you can see in the example below, we show how to use the block to extract those three entities from the date. You could also get Hour, Minute, or Second if desired.
dateToString: converts a part of date into a string. This block extracts a selected portion of the date and converts it to the actual Month or Day of the week.
In the example below, we show how to use the block to extract those two entities from the date.
timeToMinutes: converts a time value to a number of minutes. In the example below, we have converted current time of 19:20 to 1160 minutes. Also, you will see that we took minutes and divided it by 60 to get the current hour of the day. That result is 19.33 hours, or 7:20pm (.33 hours is approximately 20 minutes).
Usage Examples
Parking Lot Lights
In the example below, we are using the time block to extract just current time from the now block. Then we are using time subtract blocks to determine if the current time is either 15 minutes before sunset (or less) or 15 minutes after sunrise (or less). If either of these conditions are true, then we set the Parking Lot Lights to on. In our example below, current time is 20:17 and sunset time is 20:29. Because the difference is less than 15 minutes, the lights are set on.
Another thing we could do with this application is to set the Sunrise, Sunset, and Current Time as Project variables (or global variables), so we wouldn't have to use the weather blocks in every program. We could also package up this lighting application as a Macro in order to use it elsewhere in this project, as well as export it for use in other projects.