DATE

Description

DATE provides operations related to formatting or manipulating a date.  To use this Nexial expression, one would start by specifying a DATE instance with one of the following:

• [DATE({date}) => ... ...] - start a new DATE instance using standard date format MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss. For example, [DATE(04/01/2017 05:43:11) => ...]) starts a Nexial expression on a date of April 1st, 2017 5:43:11 AM. 
• [DATE(now) => ... ...] or [DATE(right now) => ... ...] - start a new DATE instance assuming standard date format MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss and using current date/time.
• [DATE({date},{format}) => ... ...] - start a new DATE instance using the specified date format.  The date/time formatting follows  the standard Java date/time convention. For example, [DATE(2017/04/01,yyyy/MM/dd) => ...] starts a Nexial expression on a date of April 1st, 2017.   Technically such date is implicitly set to a time of 00:00:00.
• [DATE({date},epoch) => ... ...] - start a new DATE instance assuming the specified date value is an  epoch  (or timestamp). 

Operations

addDay(days)

Add days to the current day part of the date instance.

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addHour(hours)

Add hours to the current hour part of the date instance.  Note that the value represents

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addMinute(minutes)

Add minutes to the current minute part of the date instance.

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addMonth(months)

Add months to the current month part of the date instance.

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addSecond(seconds)

Add seconds to the current second part of the date instance.

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addYear(years)

Add years to the current year part of the date instance.

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format(pattern)

Transform the same date instance into another textual form, using the specified pattern. Use epoch to format date as timestamp. Use informal to format date in colloquial, non-exact manner that mimic human conversation. For example, informal format would output about a minute ago instead of 00:00:57, or about a month and a half ago rather than 2018/08/24 00:01:32. The informal format is suitable to use in conjunction with the sound » speak(text) command.

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setDay(days)

Set the day part of the date instance.

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setDOW(days)

Set the day of the week part of the date instance. Use the numeric value mapped to the day of the week: 1=SUNDAY, 2=MONDAY, 3=TUESDAY, 4=WEDNESDAY, 5=THURSDAY, 6=FRIDAY, 7=SATURDAY.

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setHour(hours)

Set the hour part of the date instance. Note that the value represents the 24-hour system (i.e. 22 means 10 p.m.).

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setMinute(minutes)

Set the minute part of the date instance.

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setMonth(months)

Set the month part of the date instance.

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setSecond(seconds)

Set the second part of the date instance.

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setYear(years)

Set the year part of the date instance.

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store(var)

Save current DATE expression to a data variable. If the specified var exists, its value will be overwritten. Using this operation, one can put an expression on pause and resume it at a later time.

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text

Transform the date instance to its textual form, which would most likely be the way it was initially specified.

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