Jump to content

A simple way to parse date/time stamps


Recommended Posts

I'm running a script to take some screenshots every hour or so and I want to append the date/time to the file name. However, Windows won't allow characters like ":" and "/" so I'm a bit stuck. Surely this must be a basic piece of functionality?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of be creative and use a UNIX timestamp appended to the end of the filename.

UDF List:

 
_AdapterConnections()_AlwaysRun()_AppMon()_AppMonEx()_ArrayFilter/_ArrayReduce_BinaryBin()_CheckMsgBox()_CmdLineRaw()_ContextMenu()_ConvertLHWebColor()/_ConvertSHWebColor()_DesktopDimensions()_DisplayPassword()_DotNet_Load()/_DotNet_Unload()_Fibonacci()_FileCompare()_FileCompareContents()_FileNameByHandle()_FilePrefix/SRE()_FindInFile()_GetBackgroundColor()/_SetBackgroundColor()_GetConrolID()_GetCtrlClass()_GetDirectoryFormat()_GetDriveMediaType()_GetFilename()/_GetFilenameExt()_GetHardwareID()_GetIP()_GetIP_Country()_GetOSLanguage()_GetSavedSource()_GetStringSize()_GetSystemPaths()_GetURLImage()_GIFImage()_GoogleWeather()_GUICtrlCreateGroup()_GUICtrlListBox_CreateArray()_GUICtrlListView_CreateArray()_GUICtrlListView_SaveCSV()_GUICtrlListView_SaveHTML()_GUICtrlListView_SaveTxt()_GUICtrlListView_SaveXML()_GUICtrlMenu_Recent()_GUICtrlMenu_SetItemImage()_GUICtrlTreeView_CreateArray()_GUIDisable()_GUIImageList_SetIconFromHandle()_GUIRegisterMsg()_GUISetIcon()_Icon_Clear()/_Icon_Set()_IdleTime()_InetGet()_InetGetGUI()_InetGetProgress()_IPDetails()_IsFileOlder()_IsGUID()_IsHex()_IsPalindrome()_IsRegKey()_IsStringRegExp()_IsSystemDrive()_IsUPX()_IsValidType()_IsWebColor()_Language()_Log()_MicrosoftInternetConnectivity()_MSDNDataType()_PathFull/GetRelative/Split()_PathSplitEx()_PrintFromArray()_ProgressSetMarquee()_ReDim()_RockPaperScissors()/_RockPaperScissorsLizardSpock()_ScrollingCredits_SelfDelete()_SelfRename()_SelfUpdate()_SendTo()_ShellAll()_ShellFile()_ShellFolder()_SingletonHWID()_SingletonPID()_Startup()_StringCompact()_StringIsValid()_StringRegExpMetaCharacters()_StringReplaceWholeWord()_StringStripChars()_Temperature()_TrialPeriod()_UKToUSDate()/_USToUKDate()_WinAPI_Create_CTL_CODE()_WinAPI_CreateGUID()_WMIDateStringToDate()/_DateToWMIDateString()Au3 script parsingAutoIt SearchAutoIt3 PortableAutoIt3WrapperToPragmaAutoItWinGetTitle()/AutoItWinSetTitle()CodingDirToHTML5FileInstallrFileReadLastChars()GeoIP databaseGUI - Only Close ButtonGUI ExamplesGUICtrlDeleteImage()GUICtrlGetBkColor()GUICtrlGetStyle()GUIEventsGUIGetBkColor()Int_Parse() & Int_TryParse()IsISBN()LockFile()Mapping CtrlIDsOOP in AutoItParseHeadersToSciTE()PasswordValidPasteBinPosts Per DayPreExpandProtect GlobalsQueue()Resource UpdateResourcesExSciTE JumpSettings INISHELLHOOKShunting-YardSignature CreatorStack()Stopwatch()StringAddLF()/StringStripLF()StringEOLToCRLF()VSCROLLWM_COPYDATAMore Examples...

Updated: 22/04/2018

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Hour & '_' & @mday & '_' & @etc...

Great thanks! I knew it had to be something simple enough. I was looking at substrings and string arrays and thought it was far too complex for something so simple.

Of be creative and use a UNIX timestamp appended to the end of the filename.

That's a good idea, but I'd rather have it in Day/Month/Year format as the people reading the files won't be computer literate and would rather have an immediately recognisable format.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a good idea, but I'd rather have it in Day/Month/Year format as the people reading the files won't be computer literate and would rather have an immediately recognisable format.

What if they're used to MM/DD/YYYY? Don't get me wrong, I prefer your choice, but perhaps you should base the format on the user's locale settings.

UDF List:

 
_AdapterConnections()_AlwaysRun()_AppMon()_AppMonEx()_ArrayFilter/_ArrayReduce_BinaryBin()_CheckMsgBox()_CmdLineRaw()_ContextMenu()_ConvertLHWebColor()/_ConvertSHWebColor()_DesktopDimensions()_DisplayPassword()_DotNet_Load()/_DotNet_Unload()_Fibonacci()_FileCompare()_FileCompareContents()_FileNameByHandle()_FilePrefix/SRE()_FindInFile()_GetBackgroundColor()/_SetBackgroundColor()_GetConrolID()_GetCtrlClass()_GetDirectoryFormat()_GetDriveMediaType()_GetFilename()/_GetFilenameExt()_GetHardwareID()_GetIP()_GetIP_Country()_GetOSLanguage()_GetSavedSource()_GetStringSize()_GetSystemPaths()_GetURLImage()_GIFImage()_GoogleWeather()_GUICtrlCreateGroup()_GUICtrlListBox_CreateArray()_GUICtrlListView_CreateArray()_GUICtrlListView_SaveCSV()_GUICtrlListView_SaveHTML()_GUICtrlListView_SaveTxt()_GUICtrlListView_SaveXML()_GUICtrlMenu_Recent()_GUICtrlMenu_SetItemImage()_GUICtrlTreeView_CreateArray()_GUIDisable()_GUIImageList_SetIconFromHandle()_GUIRegisterMsg()_GUISetIcon()_Icon_Clear()/_Icon_Set()_IdleTime()_InetGet()_InetGetGUI()_InetGetProgress()_IPDetails()_IsFileOlder()_IsGUID()_IsHex()_IsPalindrome()_IsRegKey()_IsStringRegExp()_IsSystemDrive()_IsUPX()_IsValidType()_IsWebColor()_Language()_Log()_MicrosoftInternetConnectivity()_MSDNDataType()_PathFull/GetRelative/Split()_PathSplitEx()_PrintFromArray()_ProgressSetMarquee()_ReDim()_RockPaperScissors()/_RockPaperScissorsLizardSpock()_ScrollingCredits_SelfDelete()_SelfRename()_SelfUpdate()_SendTo()_ShellAll()_ShellFile()_ShellFolder()_SingletonHWID()_SingletonPID()_Startup()_StringCompact()_StringIsValid()_StringRegExpMetaCharacters()_StringReplaceWholeWord()_StringStripChars()_Temperature()_TrialPeriod()_UKToUSDate()/_USToUKDate()_WinAPI_Create_CTL_CODE()_WinAPI_CreateGUID()_WMIDateStringToDate()/_DateToWMIDateString()Au3 script parsingAutoIt SearchAutoIt3 PortableAutoIt3WrapperToPragmaAutoItWinGetTitle()/AutoItWinSetTitle()CodingDirToHTML5FileInstallrFileReadLastChars()GeoIP databaseGUI - Only Close ButtonGUI ExamplesGUICtrlDeleteImage()GUICtrlGetBkColor()GUICtrlGetStyle()GUIEventsGUIGetBkColor()Int_Parse() & Int_TryParse()IsISBN()LockFile()Mapping CtrlIDsOOP in AutoItParseHeadersToSciTE()PasswordValidPasteBinPosts Per DayPreExpandProtect GlobalsQueue()Resource UpdateResourcesExSciTE JumpSettings INISHELLHOOKShunting-YardSignature CreatorStack()Stopwatch()StringAddLF()/StringStripLF()StringEOLToCRLF()VSCROLLWM_COPYDATAMore Examples...

Updated: 22/04/2018

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For readability, mmddyyyy_hhmm

For calculation, yyyymmddhhmmss

Spoiler

“Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

Mechaflash,

For readability, mmddyyyy_hhmm

You are joking, I hope! :o

M23

Public_Domain.png.2d871819fcb9957cf44f4514551a2935.png Any of my own code posted anywhere on the forum is available for use by others without any restriction of any kind

Open spoiler to see my UDFs:

Spoiler

ArrayMultiColSort ---- Sort arrays on multiple columns
ChooseFileFolder ---- Single and multiple selections from specified path treeview listing
Date_Time_Convert -- Easily convert date/time formats, including the language used
ExtMsgBox --------- A highly customisable replacement for MsgBox
GUIExtender -------- Extend and retract multiple sections within a GUI
GUIFrame ---------- Subdivide GUIs into many adjustable frames
GUIListViewEx ------- Insert, delete, move, drag, sort, edit and colour ListView items
GUITreeViewEx ------ Check/clear parent and child checkboxes in a TreeView
Marquee ----------- Scrolling tickertape GUIs
NoFocusLines ------- Remove the dotted focus lines from buttons, sliders, radios and checkboxes
Notify ------------- Small notifications on the edge of the display
Scrollbars ----------Automatically sized scrollbars with a single command
StringSize ---------- Automatically size controls to fit text
Toast -------------- Small GUIs which pop out of the notification area

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never understood why people use the format mm/dd/yyyy (months days years)

To me it's the same as having mm:ss:hh (minutes seconds hours)

I'll have it either descending or ascending in logical units, but mixing them up seems weird to me.

AutoIt Absolute Beginners    Require a serial    Pause Script    Video Tutorials by Morthawt   ipify 

Monkey's are, like, natures humans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never understood why people use the format mm/dd/yyyy (months days years)

You mean DD/MM/YYYY is better? It depends on your country.

And because of that SHIT, I write dates with the month in letters on this forum.

Edited by FireFox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mechaflash,

You are joking, I hope! :o

M23

What? ;)

Spoiler

“Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean DD/MM/YYYY is better? It depends on your country.

And because of that SHIT, I write dates with the month in letters on this forum.

I don't see how what country you live in would make a difference personally.

Taking the smallest unit and putting it in the middle of two others is barmy however far you travel.

AutoIt Absolute Beginners    Require a serial    Pause Script    Video Tutorials by Morthawt   ipify 

Monkey's are, like, natures humans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see how what country you live in would make a difference personally.

Taking the smallest unit and putting it in the middle of two others is barmy however far you travel.

True... logically unsound... however such as the U.S., all dates are written in mm/dd/yyyy format.

Spoiler

“Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see how what country you live in would make a difference personally.

I see one.

MM/DD/YYYY

02/04/2013

DD/MM/YYYY

04/02/2013

If you don't know the date format, how can you know if it's the April 4th or the Feb 2nd ? Even worth if the year is written with two digits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

however such as the U.S., all dates are written in mm/dd/yyyy format.

Hardly, which opens a useless avenue for severe errors. Moreover, you also need to know where the string originated from.

Look by yourself: even FireFox just mixed things up while pointing out how easy it was to mix things up!

This wonderful site allows debugging and testing regular expressions (many flavors available). An absolute must have in your bookmarks.
Another excellent RegExp tutorial. Don't forget downloading your copy of up-to-date pcretest.exe and pcregrep.exe here
RegExp tutorial: enough to get started
PCRE v8.33 regexp documentation latest available release and currently implemented in AutoIt beta.

SQLitespeed is another feature-rich premier SQLite manager (includes import/export). Well worth a try.
SQLite Expert (freeware Personal Edition or payware Pro version) is a very useful SQLite database manager.
An excellent eBook covering almost every aspect of SQLite3: a must-read for anyone doing serious work.
SQL tutorial (covers "generic" SQL, but most of it applies to SQLite as well)
A work-in-progress SQLite3 tutorial. Don't miss other LxyzTHW pages!
SQLite official website with full documentation (may be newer than the SQLite library that comes standard with AutoIt)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What if they're used to MM/DD/YYYY? Don't get me wrong, I prefer your choice, but perhaps you should base the format on the user's locale settings.

It's only between me and a couple of other users so I don't really need to worry about locale settings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hardly, which opens a useless avenue for severe errors. Moreover, you also need to know where the string originated from.

Look by yourself: even FireFox just mixed things up while pointing out how easy it was to mix things up!

Now you understand he requested the formatting for a User... not a programmer... and given it's not technical personnel either, using a date format that they are used to seeing and using on a daily basis is what should be used.

And hardly what? Hardly dates in the U.S. are represented as mm/dd/yyyy?

Spoiler

“Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hardly all

This wonderful site allows debugging and testing regular expressions (many flavors available). An absolute must have in your bookmarks.
Another excellent RegExp tutorial. Don't forget downloading your copy of up-to-date pcretest.exe and pcregrep.exe here
RegExp tutorial: enough to get started
PCRE v8.33 regexp documentation latest available release and currently implemented in AutoIt beta.

SQLitespeed is another feature-rich premier SQLite manager (includes import/export). Well worth a try.
SQLite Expert (freeware Personal Edition or payware Pro version) is a very useful SQLite database manager.
An excellent eBook covering almost every aspect of SQLite3: a must-read for anyone doing serious work.
SQL tutorial (covers "generic" SQL, but most of it applies to SQLite as well)
A work-in-progress SQLite3 tutorial. Don't miss other LxyzTHW pages!
SQLite official website with full documentation (may be newer than the SQLite library that comes standard with AutoIt)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Screw it, format it like dmyyhmsmysydmh

Edited by Mechaflash
Spoiler

“Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am from the US and find it an issue when not knowing where the original date came from. I have messed up a few times when looking at dates when there it is less then 12, once the number passes 12 I can read the date format - no problem. But since I deal with countries outside of US - I find it hard.

I wish that two things in the world would change - or US would agree to match the rest of the world - both in time stamps and measuring lengths and liquids. Really WHY does America have to be different from the rest of the world - I think it was Jimmy Carter who tried to change it back in the day, but it never caught on. I do not use Metric, as everything here is based on inches. But for Math it is a lot easier to deal with 10s then 12s.

Just sayen...

All by me:

"Sometimes you have to go back to where you started, to get to where you want to go." 

"Everybody catches up with everyone, eventually" 

"As you teach others, you are really teaching yourself."

From my dad

"Do not worry about yesterday, as the only thing that you can control is tomorrow."

 

WindowsError.gif

WIKI | Tabs; | Arrays; | Strings | Wiki Arrays | How to ask a Question | Forum Search | FAQ | Tutorials | Original FAQ | ONLINE HELP | UDF's Wiki | AutoIt PDF

AutoIt Snippets | Multple Guis | Interrupting a running function | Another Send

StringRegExp | StringRegExp Help | RegEXTester | REG TUTOR | Reg TUTOT 2

AutoItSetOption | Macros | AutoIt Snippets | Wrapper | Autoit  Docs

SCITE | SciteJump | BB | MyTopics | Programming | UDFs | AutoIt 123 | UDFs Form | UDF

Learning to script | Tutorials | Documentation | IE.AU3 | Games? | FreeSoftware | Path_Online | Core Language

Programming Tips

Excel Changes

ControlHover.UDF

GDI_Plus

Draw_On_Screen

GDI Basics

GDI_More_Basics

GDI Rotate

GDI Graph

GDI  CheckExistingItems

GDI Trajectory

Replace $ghGDIPDll with $__g_hGDIPDll

DLL 101?

Array via Object

GDI Swimlane

GDI Plus French 101 Site

GDI Examples UEZ

GDI Basic Clock

GDI Detection

Ternary operator

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If everyone used the ISO8601 date format it wouldn't be an issue, but practically no person does for day to day usage.

And even if they use the same format such as Year then Month then Day, they separate them differently from country to country.

If I posted any code, assume that code was written using the latest release version unless stated otherwise. Also, if it doesn't work on XP I can't help with that because I don't have access to XP, and I'm not going to.
Give a programmer the correct code and he can do his work for a day. Teach a programmer to debug and he can do his work for a lifetime - by Chirag Gude
How to ask questions the smart way!

I hereby grant any person the right to use any code I post, that I am the original author of, on the autoitscript.com forums, unless I've specifically stated otherwise in the code or the thread post. If you do use my code all I ask, as a courtesy, is to make note of where you got it from.

Back up and restore Windows user files _Array.au3 - Modified array functions that include support for 2D arrays.  -  ColorChooser - An add-on for SciTE that pops up a color dialog so you can select and paste a color code into a script.  -  Customizable Splashscreen GUI w/Progress Bar - Create a custom "splash screen" GUI with a progress bar and custom label.  -  _FileGetProperty - Retrieve the properties of a file  -  SciTE Toolbar - A toolbar demo for use with the SciTE editor  -  GUIRegisterMsg demo - Demo script to show how to use the Windows messages to interact with controls and your GUI.  -   Latin Square password generator

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...