$Sir Date2NS

Convert datetime string to number of seconds

Most Sirius $functions have been deprecated in favor of Object Oriented methods. The OO equivalent for the $Sir_Date2NS function is to be entered.

The $Sir_Date2NS function expects a datetime value string and a datetime format string and returns the input datetime converted to the number of seconds since 1 January, 1900. It accepts an optional CENTSPAN value and an optional error control string. If an error is detected, the returned value is -9E12 (-9000000000000).

Syntax

<section begin="syntax" /> %num = $Sir_Date2NS(dat, fmt, span, errctl) <section end="syntax" />

Syntax terms

%num	Set to the value of dat, converted to the number of seconds from 1 Jan 1900 12:00 AM.
dat	Datetime value string.
fmt	Datetime format string corresponding to dat. Refer to "Datetime string formats" for an explanation of valid datetime formats and valid dates. Non-strict matching is used for input format fmt; see "Strict and non-strict format matching".
span	Optional CENTSPAN value; default is -50.
errctl	Optional error control string; refer to "Datetime error handling".

Usage notes

• Values returned by $Sir_Date2NS will often exceed the range that can be represented in a 4-byte integer, so you should probably avoid storing the value in a BINARY or FLOAT4 field.
• Dates prior to 1 January 1900 return a negative number.
• The inverse of this $function is $Sir_NS2Date.
• $Sir_Date2NS returns the value -9E12 (-9000000000000) in the following cases (see the discussion in "Datetime error handling"):
  • fmt is not a valid datetime format.
  • dat does not match fmt.
  • dat is outside of range permitted for fmt.
  • span is invalid.

Example

The following fragment prints the value 86400:

%a = $Sir_Date2NS('010695', 'MMDDYY') %b = $Sir_Date2NS('010595', 'MMDDYY') %c = %a - %b Print %c

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