Clock Command

[Ricci Graham]

Can anyone tell me why this error is happening:

This is being called from within an Xlate  and the code in the Pre tcl Proc is as follows:

lassign $xlateInVals dt

set dt [clock format [clock scan $dt] -format “%m%d%Y”]

set xlateOutVals

errorInfo:

unable to convert date-time string “200701091244”

  while executing

“clock scan $dt”

  invoked from within

“clock format [clock scan $dt] -format “%m%d%Y””

  invoked from within

“set dt [clock format [clock scan $dt] -format “%m%d%Y”]”

I am using this same code on other dates in the Xlate and they work fine. So I thought it must be that some of the date are set as a Date and some are as a Date Time Stamp, but I changed the ones that were a Date Time Stamp on the inbound variant and the outbound variant and I am still getting the error.

I am out of ideas, so any suggestion or ideas would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Ricci

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Ricci,

I have found clock scan to be rather picky.

I use convert_date (HCI provided) to do what you want.

In your case:

set dt [convert_date ts $dt yd 8]

should do the trick and return 01092007.

To find out more about convert_date go into hcitcl and do a help convert_date.

Jim Kosloskey

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Charlie Bursell]

While as Jim said, the clock command is picky, the power of this command as compared to the outdated convert_date command makes it worthwhile.  All Tcl commands if not used correctly are picky  🙂

The clock scan command expects the date and time to be in a list (space separated).  For example “20070117 011323” would scan as would just the date alone (the default of 12:00:00 AM would be used.

Using the regsub command it is simple to make an HL7 date scanable

regsub — {(d{8})(d*)} $dt {1 2} dt

The formatting capabilities plus the ability to do date math with the clock command makes it much more powerful than the convert_date command.

For example

assume dt = 20070116131522

regsub — {(d{8})(d*)} $dt {1 2} dt

set yesterday [clock format [clock scan yesterday -base

         [clock scan $dt]] -format %Y%m%d%H%M%S]

echo $yesterday

 => 20070115131522

Try that with convert_date  😉

[Ricci Graham]

Thanks so much to both of you (Jim and Charlie). I ended up using your suggestion, Charlie, because when I tried your’s, Jim, it failed if there wasn’t a date in the field, but otherwise it worked great.

It is so great to have this as a resource and I appreciate you guys SO much.

Ricci Graham

[Mike Kim]

The good thing about convert_date is that it handles dates prior to 1903.  Clock scan doesn’t.

Mike

[Rob Parnell]

Why will this time not work with clock scan

20080816005200

[Keith McLeod]

You may need to insert a ‘T’ between date and time if you want it that granular.

hcitcl>clock scan 20080816T005200

1218862320

hcitcl>clock format 1218862320

Sat Aug 16 00:52:00 EDT 2008

hcitcl>

Hope this helps

[Rob Parnell]

It works fine if I change the hour to 01 intead of 00

[Charlie Bursell]

The clock scan command expects a list of one element (YYYYMMDD) or two elements (YYYYMMDD HHMMSS)

A simple solution:

set dt 20080816T005200

regsub — {(d{8})(.*$)} $dt {1 2} dt

It will scan now

[John Mercogliano]

Please read my response in this post, this will give you some more insites to the problem:

https://usspvlclovertch2.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=2613&highlight=” class=”bbcode_url”>https://usspvlclovertch2.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=2613&highlight=

Adding the T does not work if your original time does not have seconds like a lot of time inputs in messages.  You will need to make sure that you add a 00 for seconds or use one of the regsub expressions in the attached post.

John Mercogliano
Sentara Healthcare
Hampton Roads, VA

[Rob Parnell]

Charlie,

Can you explain why this command did not work for the hour of 00 but works for every other time.

[Charlie Bursell]

I can only say it is an anomaly with the clock command.  Given the power of this command, it is well worth the effort to learn the small nuances you encounter.

I am sure if you post the question on comp.lang.tcl you will get more answers than you need  😀

[Mark Thompson]

Rob,

The problem might be that after clock scan removes the leading zeroes in the time (remember Tcl is picky about numbers with leading zeroes) it doesn’t recognize what’s left as a date/time anymore.  If you colon delimit your time, then clock scan works fine as far back as 1903.  For example: ‘clock scan “20080829 00:01″‘ = 1219986060.

- Mark Thompson
HealthPartners

[John Mercogliano]

Rob,

  This is actually a bug that is not fixed till version 8.5.  This sourceforge link talks about it:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1090413&group_id=10894&atid=110894” class=”bbcode_url”>http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1090413&group_id=10894&atid=110894

  Basicly, without the colons in the time it treats the value as an integer chopping off the leading zero’s.  

  This link has some regsub commands you can use:

https://usspvlclovertch2.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=2613&highlight=” class=”bbcode_url”>https://usspvlclovertch2.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=2613&highlight=

John Mercogliano
Sentara Healthcare
Hampton Roads, VA

[Author]

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