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Time in Scilab
Our program demonstrates various time operations in Scilab. Here’s the full source code:
// We'll start by getting the current time.
now = getdate();
disp(now);
// You can build a date vector by providing the
// year, month, day, etc.
then = [2009, 11, 17, 20, 34, 58];
disp(then);
// You can extract the various components of the date
// value as expected.
disp(then(1)); // Year
disp(then(2)); // Month
disp(then(3)); // Day
disp(then(4)); // Hour
disp(then(5)); // Minute
disp(then(6)); // Second
// The day of the week is also available (1 = Monday, 7 = Sunday).
disp(weekday(then));
// These functions compare two dates, testing if the
// first occurs before, after, or at the same time
// as the second, respectively.
disp(datenum(then) < datenum(now));
disp(datenum(then) > datenum(now));
disp(datenum(then) == datenum(now));
// The diff function returns the difference between two dates in days.
diff = datenum(now) - datenum(then);
disp(diff);
// We can compute the length of the duration in
// various units.
disp(diff * 24); // Hours
disp(diff * 24 * 60); // Minutes
disp(diff * 24 * 60 * 60); // Seconds
// You can use datenum and datevec to advance a date by a given
// number of days, or with a negative value to move backwards.
disp(datevec(datenum(then) + diff));
disp(datevec(datenum(then) - diff));To run the program, save it as time_example.sce and execute it in Scilab:
--> exec('time_example.sce', -1)This will display the results of various time operations.
Note that Scilab’s date and time functions work differently from those in other languages. Scilab uses a vector representation for dates, where each element represents a component of the date (year, month, day, hour, minute, second). The datenum function converts a date vector to a serial date number, which can be used for date arithmetic.
Also, Scilab doesn’t have a built-in concept of time zones or locations, so all dates are assumed to be in the local time zone.
Next, we’ll look at other fundamental concepts in Scilab.