Date and time calculations in UNIX
I need to be able to calculate the difference in seconds between the current time and a future point in time. The subtrahend will be derived from the current time, and the minuend will be specified as the hour and minute, like this: HH:MM. The arguments are assumed to be 24-hour (military) time. A minuend predating the current time will be considered illegal. I'm working primarily with the Korn shell, but I'm willing to consider solutions from any of the other interpreters (e.g., Perl).
ozo
perl -MDate::Manip -le 'print +(DateCalc("now",shift.":0
The date command is brilliant for doing date arithmetic. You can convert any date it recognizes to epoch (seconds since 1970-01-01.00:00:00), do your arithmetic, then convert back to format and fields of your choice. Works from any shell (that can do arithmetic).
Do you really want to reject a lower HH:MM than time now? I would have expected you'd want to consider it as being a time tomorrow, at least if the resulting interval is less than, say, 12 hours. (Perl is not a shell by the way: out of Perl, Python and Tcl/Tk only Tcl/Tk provides a shell. But I digress).
In this example, I set shell variables HH & MM to represent 1500 hrs. Then I get how many seconds until then (it's now a bit after 14:10). I'm using bash, but did try it with ksh - worked fine
Do you really want to reject a lower HH:MM than time now? I would have expected you'd want to consider it as being a time tomorrow, at least if the resulting interval is less than, say, 12 hours. (Perl is not a shell by the way: out of Perl, Python and Tcl/Tk only Tcl/Tk provides a shell. But I digress).
In this example, I set shell variables HH & MM to represent 1500 hrs. Then I get how many seconds until then (it's now a bit after 14:10). I'm using bash, but did try it with ksh - worked fine
14:10:49$ HH=15
14:13:05$ MM=00
14:13:08$ echo $(($(date -d $HH:$MM +%s) - $(date +%s)))
2805
14:13:15$
You can flag an error if the output value is negative, if you like
ASKER
Good stuff guys! I was a little concerned when half a day went by without a response! :-) And who was that lecturing me about the difference between Perl and shells?! Why you I oughta... ;-) Just kidding! Your thoroughness is appreciated!
from duncan_roe...
ozo...
What would the Perl example look like using the same value(s) from the shell example?
from duncan_roe...
Definitely worth considering!
Do you really want to reject a lower HH:MM than time now? I would have expected you'd want to consider it as being a time tomorrow...
ozo...
What would the Perl example look like using the same value(s) from the shell example?
perl -MDate::Manip -le 'print +(DateCalc("now",shift.":0
or
HH=15
MM=00
perl -MDate::Manip -le 'print +(DateCalc("now",shift.":0
But if you want HH and MM separate, we can simplify the script a little.
or
HH=15
MM=00
perl -MDate::Manip -le 'print +(DateCalc("now",shift.":0
But if you want HH and MM separate, we can simplify the script a little.
ASKER
duncan_roe..,
Where are you running the date command (i.e., Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, etc.)? On my AIX system, it's failing as follows:
$ HH=06
$ MM=00
$ echo $(($(date -d $HH:$MM +%s) - $(date +%s)))
date: illegal option -- d
Usage: date [-u] [+Field Descriptors]
Where are you running the date command (i.e., Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, etc.)? On my AIX system, it's failing as follows:
$ HH=06
$ MM=00
$ echo $(($(date -d $HH:$MM +%s) - $(date +%s)))
date: illegal option -- d
Usage: date [-u] [+Field Descriptors]
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ASKER
Using the perl command I'm getting messages resembling the following:
# perl -MDate::Manip -le 'print +(DateCalc("now",shift.":00")=~/^0:.*:(\d+:\d+):\d+$/)[0]||"illegal"' 15:15
Can't locate Date/Manip.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/opt/perl5/lib/5.8.8/aix-thread-multi /usr/opt/perl5/lib/5.8.8 /usr/opt/perl5
/lib/site_perl/5.8.8/aix-thread-multi /usr/opt/perl5/lib/site_perl/5.8.8 /usr/opt/perl5/lib/site_perl .).
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.