How to get milliseconds

[gknopf]

All,
I need to create my own timestamp including milliseconds. I haven't found a funtion for that. Currently, I am extracting the milliseconds with this workaround (last three digits from TimeStamp variable):

DateStamp>c:\temp_file.tmp,
ReadFile>c:\temp_file.tmp,TimeStamp
DeleteFile>c:\temp_file.tmp
...

Can someone tell me how to directly assign milliseconds to a variable? That would be great.

Thanks in advance
George

[JRL]

Here's one way. VBScript "Timer" function gives the seconds since midnight in a form that usually runs to 5 or 6 decimal places. You just need to round out to 3 decimal places. Then make sure you have three decimal places at the end. If you only have 1 or 2 you can pad zeros on the end to get 3.

Code: Select all

VBSTART
VBEND
Hour>hh
Min>mn
Sec>ss

//This chunk of code give you the milliseconds portion of the time.
VBEval>timer,SecondsSinceMidnight
Let>SecondsSinceMidnight={(Round(%SecondsSinceMidnight%*1000))/1000}
Separate>SecondsSinceMidnight,.,TimePart
Length>TimePart_2,len
If>len=3
Else
  If>len=2
    Let>TimePart_2=%TimePart_2%0
  Else
    Let>TimePart_2=%TimePart_2%00
  EndIf
EndIf
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

mdl>%hh%:%mn%:%ss%.%TimePart_2%

Your method is much more efficient.

[JRL]

Here's another way. Someone good with vbscript might be able to do most of this in one line.

Maybe there's a RegEx method.

Code: Select all

VBSTART
VBEND
VBEval>timer,SecsSinceMidNight
VBEval>Round (%SecsSinceMidNight%, 3),RoundedSecs
VBEval>FormatNumber(%RoundedSecs%, 3),PaddedSecs
Separate>PaddedSecs,.,millisecs

mdl>Millisecs_2

[jpuziano]

Hi gknopf,

Thanks for sharing that with us... its simpler than other methods I've used to generate a timestamp so this has been added to snippets:

Code: Select all

DateStamp>%TEMP_DIR%~temp_file.tmp,
ReadFile>%TEMP_DIR%~temp_file.tmp,TimeStamp
DeleteFile>%TEMP_DIR%~temp_file.tmp

// var TimeStamp now contains data in the following format:
// 2011-02-10:23:24:46:662 - 
// and there is a trailing space after the hyphen above
// the following line gets rid of the trailing " - "
StringReplace>TimeStamp, - ,,TimeStamp

MDL>TimeStamp

Also, thanks JRL for your method.

Marcus, are there any simpler methods available?

I know we have these commands:

Sec>Seconds
Min>Minutes
Hour>Hour

And at first, I thought why not add this...

FSec>Fractional_Seconds

...but that seems silly when what I really want is the whole thing into a variable looking like this:

2011-02-10:23:47:35:153

...and that is what gknopf's workaround method already gives us.

To improve on that, a potential new MS command could do the above in just one line and might be called:

DateStampToVar>myVar

Not a huge need but it would be convienient none-the-less. Maybe consider adding to the Wish List? Just a thought...

Thanks and take care

[JRL]

Last method I mentioned could be shortened to:

Code: Select all

VBSTART
VBEND

VBEval>FormatNumber(timer, 3),PaddedSecs
Separate>PaddedSecs,.,millisecs

mdl>Millisecs_2

[jpuziano]

Thanks JRL,

I discovered that with gknopf's method, I still had a %CRLF% at the end of the DateTimeStamp value but a modification to the StringReplace> line cleaned that up.

Note also that gknopf's method produces a DateTimeStamp (unless we take extra steps to chop off the Date) and your method produces a TimeStamp (no date)...

Code: Select all

VBSTART
VBEND

//6 lines (not including VBSTART/VBEND) to get TimeStamp into a variable 
Hour>hh
Min>mn
Sec>ss
VBEval>FormatNumber(timer, 3),PaddedSecs
Separate>PaddedSecs,.,millisecs
Let>TimeStamp=%hh%:%mn%:%ss%.%millisecs_2%

//4 lines to get DateTimeStamp into a variable
DateStamp>%TEMP_DIR%~temp_file.tmp,
ReadFile>%TEMP_DIR%~temp_file.tmp,DateTimeStamp
DeleteFile>%TEMP_DIR%~temp_file.tmp
StringReplace>DateTimeStamp, - %CRLF%,,DateTimeStamp

MDL>%TimeStamp%%CRLF%%DateTimeStamp%

Mystery: I ran the above code several times and most of the time, DateTimeStamp had an earlier value than TimeStamp... even though Timestamp is generated first. Does anyone know why?

Open Challenge: Can anyone get a TimeStamp or a DateTimeStamp value into an MS variable in less lines of code than the above? Fame, glory and Reputation Points to anyone who can improve on either of the above.

Take care

[Marcus Tettmar]

This should give you milliseconds of current time:

VBEval>Fix((Timer() - ((Hour(Now) * 3600) + (Minute(Now) * 60) + Second(Now))) * 1000),milliseconds

So this will provide a timestamp to jpuziano's format:

VBEval>Year(now) & "-" & Right("0" & Month(now),2) & "-" & Right("0" & Day(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Hour(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Minute(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Second(now),2) & ":" & Fix((Timer() - ((Hour(Now) * 3600) + (Minute(Now) * 60) + Second(Now))) * 1000),timestamp

All in one - albeit long - line.

[jpuziano]

That is excellant Marcus, thanks. I popped that huge line into a Subroutine and called it like this:

Code: Select all

SRT>DateTimeStamp
  VBEval>Year(now) & "-" & Right("0" & Month(now),2) & "-" & Right("0" & Day(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Hour(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Minute(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Second(now),2) & ":" & Fix((Timer() - ((Hour(Now) * 3600) + (Minute(Now) * 60) + Second(Now))) * 1000),VBDateTimeStamp
  Let>%DateTimeStamp_Var_1%=VBDateTimeStamp
END>DateTimeStamp

Let>VarName={"myDateTimeStamp"}
GoSub>DateTimeStamp,VarName

MDL>myDateTimeStamp

So with the above Subroutine in a script, it gives us the ability to load any variable with a DateTimeStamp value using just the following two lines:

Code: Select all

Let>VarName={"myDateTimeStamp"}
GoSub>DateTimeStamp,VarName

And even simpler, if we are fine with just choosing one known variable that will hold the value, we could do this:

Code: Select all

SRT>Load_Var_DateTimeStamp
  VBEval>Year(now) & "-" & Right("0" & Month(now),2) & "-" & Right("0" & Day(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Hour(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Minute(now),2) & ":" & Right("0" & Second(now),2) & ":" & Fix((Timer() - ((Hour(Now) * 3600) + (Minute(Now) * 60) + Second(Now))) * 1000),DateTimeStamp
END>Load_Var_DateTimeStamp

GoSub>Load_Var_DateTimeStamp

MDL>DateTimeStamp

That way, we could just use the following short one-liner at any point in a script where we need load the current DateTimeStamp value into the variable called DateTimeStamp

Code: Select all

GoSub>Load_Var_DateTimeStamp

Take care

[gknopf]

All,

your feedback was very inspiring. On my pursuit to find a smart and efficient solution I thought about tapping into the Win32 API with this 2-liner:

Code: Select all

LibFunc>kernel32.dll,GetTickCount,MSCounter
MidStr>%MSCounter%,{(length(%MSCounter%)-2)},3,MilliSeconds
MessageModal>ms since system start: %MSCounter% %crlf%ms extracted: %MilliSeconds%

The function GetTickCount does privide milliseconds since the last system startup.

A better function would be "GetLocalTime" from Kernel32.dll. There you would get the correct millisecond value from the timer but I have no clue on how to extract it. If someone does, thanks for sharing in advance.

Still, for the extraction of ms Marcus' solution is unmatched.

Greetings from Munich
George