DATE$

Syntax

DATE$ [(date)] or

DATE$ (year,month,day,hour,minute [,second])(SMS v2.57+ only)

Location

QL ROM

DATE$ holds the current system date and time as a string in the following format: yyyy mmm dd hh:mm:ss.

1991 May 06 18:18:44 (example)
|  | | | || || || ||
|  | | | || || || ++---- 19 TO 21 (seconds)
|  | | | || || ++------- 16 TO 17 (minutes)
|  | | | || ++---------- 13 TO 14 (hour, 24h)
|  | | | ++------------- 10 TO 12 (day)
|  | +-+----------------- 6 TO 8 (month as string)
+--+--------------------- 1 TO 4 (year)

If a parameter is used then DATE$ should return the date and time the given number of seconds after 1/1/1961, DATE$(DATE) is identical to DATE$ for any date before 3.14:07 on 19th Jan 2029 (see ADATE). However, for times after this date, the number of seconds since 1/1/1961 is represented by a negative number, calculated by number of seconds - 2147483648.

This means that to calculate a specified date after 3.14:06 on 19th Jan 2029, the following short function is required (for non-Minerva ROMs and non-SMS machines only):

100 DEFine FuNction DATE20$(seconds)
110   offset='2147483648'
120   RETurn DATE$(seconds-offset)
130 END DEFine

This function is not needed on Minerva ROMs, with the NewDate version of DATE or under SMS - see DATE for a full explanation.

Example 1

It may be useful to read the different parts of the date from DATE$ and reformat them for use in letters.

100 D$=DATE$
110 year=D$(1 TO 4): day=D$(10 TO 12): D$=D$(6 TO 8)
120 month=(D$ INSTR "..JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec")/3
130 DIM month$(12,9): RESTORE 150
140 FOR m=1 TO 12: READ month$(m)
150 DATA "January","February","March","April","May","June","July"
160 DATA "August","September","October","November","December"
170 ALTKEY "d", month$(month) & " " & day & ", " & year

Example 2

How to find the number of days between two dates:

100 date1=DATE(2032,3,30,10,0,0)
110 date2=DATE(2000,3,30,10,0,0)
120 PRINT DAYS_DIFF(date2,date1)
130 :
140 DEFine FuNction DAYS_DIFF(dy1,dy2)
150 LOCal offset,base_date,diff
160 offset='2147483648'
170 base_date=DATE(2029,1,19,3,14,7)
180 IF (date1>=0 AND date2>=0) OR (date1<0 AND date2<0)
190 IF date1>=date2:diff=date1-date2:ELSE diff=date2-date1
240 ELSE
250 IF date1<0
260 diff=(base_date-date2)+(date1+offset
270 ELSE
280 diff=(base_date-date1)+(date2+offset)
290 END IF
300 END IF
310 seconds_per_day=24*60*60
320 RETurn INT(diff/seconds_per_day)
330 END DEFine

NOTE 1

Parts of string functions cannot be obtained by slicing them directly. Expressions such as DATE$(DATE)(1 TO 4) are only valid on Minerva ROMs or under SMS. On other ROMs, the value of the function has to be copied to a variable before being sliced (as demonstrated in example 1).

NOTE 2

The QL’s system clock is limited in the range of dates it can cover - see ADATE.

MINERVA NOTE

Although on Minerva (v1.77 and later), DATE$ can now be directly sliced to extract the year for instance. It is however, necessary to tell the operating system that you are not actually providing a parameter to be converted into a date. This is achieved by using the following format to slice DATE$: DATE$ [([seconds]) [([start] TO [end])]] The following are therefore all valid on Minerva:

PRINT DATE$
PRINT DATE$(DATE+86400)
TIMER$ = DATE$()(13 TO )
YEAR$ = (DATE$)(1 TO 4)
YEAR$ = DATE$(1E9)( TO 4)

Only the first two examples will work on other ROMs.

SMS NOTE

DATE$ works mainly as per Minerva, however from v2.57+, you can also supply five or six parameters to DATE$ in common with DATE and SDATE.

CROSS-REFERENCE

Use SDATE and ADATE to set and alter the system time and date. DATE holds the current date as a floating point number, DAY$ holds the weekday as a short string.