Dates and times

Reading the clock

xTalk has functions for now: the date, the time, and the same in long and abbreviated forms. the seconds counts seconds since the start of 1970, and the milliseconds thousandths of a second, which are handy for timing things.

put the date
put the long date
put the time
put the seconds

11/5/26
Thursday, November 5, 2026
9:55 PM
1793915714

the date uses the American order, month first, so that scripts always read and write it the same way, wherever they run. the system date gives it in the order of the user's own settings, for showing to people.

Changing a date's form: convert

convert turns a date or time from any form xTalk understands into another: short date, long date, abbreviated date, seconds, internet date or dateItems. It changes the variable in place.

put "7/20/1969" into tDate
convert tDate to long date
put tDate
convert tDate to abbreviated date
put tDate
put "1/15/2024" is a date
put "2/30/2024" is a date

Sunday, July 20, 1969
Sun, Jul 20, 1969
true
false

Taking a date apart: dateItems

In dateItems form a date is seven items: year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and the day of the week (1 is Sunday). It is the form to use for arithmetic:

put "3/1/2024 2:30 PM" into tWhen
convert tWhen to dateItems
put tWhen
put "Year" && item 1 of tWhen & ", hour" && item 4 of tWhen
put item 7 of tWhen is 6

2024,3,1,14,30,0,6
Year 2024, hour 14
true

1 March 2024 was day 6 of its week, a Friday.

Adding days and months

To move a date, add to an item of its dateItems and convert it back. You need not worry about the ends of months or years: a day 32 or a month 13 rolls over into the next one.

put "12/31/2023" into tDate
convert tDate to dateItems
add 1 to item 3 of tDate
convert tDate to long date
put tDate
put "3/1/2024" into tDue
convert tDue to dateItems
add 30 to item 3 of tDue
convert tDue to short date
put tDue

Monday, January 1, 2024
3/31/24

put "1/31/2024" into tDate
convert tDate to dateItems
add 1 to item 2 of tDate
convert tDate to short date
put tDate

3/2/24

Days between two dates

Convert both dates to seconds, subtract, and divide by the seconds in a day:

function daysBetween pFirst, pSecond
   convert pFirst to seconds
   convert pSecond to seconds
   return round((pSecond - pFirst) / (24 * 60 * 60))
end daysBetween

put daysBetween("1/1/2024", "3/1/2024")
put daysBetween("1/1/2023", "1/1/2024")

60
365

The round is there for the days the clocks change, which are an hour longer or shorter than the rest.

Your own format

For a form of your own, such as the international 2024-01-05, take the date apart and put it together with format, which pads the numbers with zeros:

function isoDate pDate
   convert pDate to dateItems
   return format("%04d-%02d-%02d", item 1 of pDate, item 2 of pDate, item 3 of pDate)
end isoDate

put isoDate("1/5/2024")
put isoDate("12/25/2023")

2024-01-05
2023-12-25

Timing your code

Subtract the milliseconds before from the milliseconds after to see how long something took. The lesson Making it fast uses it a lot.

put the milliseconds into tStart
repeat 100000 times
   add 1 to tCount
end repeat
put the milliseconds - tStart && "ms"

12 ms

put "Sunday,Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday" into tDays
put "7/20/1969" into tDate
convert tDate to dateItems
put item (item 7 of tDate) of tDays

Sunday