Details
| since | 1.3 |
|---|---|
| action-pack | Core |
| author | JOSF-core team |
| status | active |
Built-in functions to get the current date or time.
Functions are always written just like variables: ${myKeyword}. Except that functions have parentheses at the end of the function name: (). These parentheses can hold parameters to add more functionality to the functions.
Deprecation notice
The following functions have been deprecated since version 2.10;
- ${today()}
- ${today(modifier)}
- ${today(format, modifier)}
- ${now()}
- ${now(modifier)}
These functions have been replaced by the new dateTime function.
dateTime()
The dateTime function accepts 0, 1 or 2 paramters;
- ${dateTime()}
- ${dateTime(format)}
- ${dateTime(format, modifier)}
It replaces the today() and now() function, as the dateTime() accepts date and time formatting options.
Examples
If any paramters are ommitted, JOSF takes the configuration option FormatDate to format your date. By default, this is set to YYYY-MM-dd.
Format options
| Format | Result |
|---|---|
| ${dateTime(YYYY-MM-dd)} | 2018-05-24 |
| ${dateTime(YY.dd.MM)} | 18.24.05 |
| ${dateTime(YYYY-MM-dd'T'HH:ss:mm, +1y)} | 2019-05-24T20:43:33 |
| ${dateTime(HH:ss)} | 20:43 |
| ${dateTime(HH:ss, -1H)} | 19:43 |
Please check out the table bellow for a total list of formatting options.
Modifier options
A modifier should always come in sets of three;
+2d
add or subtract ↲↓↳ the unit
the number
| Mofidier | result |
|---|---|
| +20 d | add 20 days |
| -19 Y | subtract 19 years |
| +2 M -8 Y | add 2 months AND subtract 8 years |
Note that spaces are allowed for better readability.
The options for the unit are;
- y, or Y - for YEARS
- M - for MONTHS (note the capitalized M)
- d - for DAYS
- H - for HOURS
- m - for MINUTES (note the non-capitalized m)
- s - for SECONDS
today() - DEPRECATED
WARNING: THIS FUNCTION IS DEPCRECATED SINCE VERSION 2.10 AND MAY BE REMOVED IN FUTURE RELEASES. PLEASE MAKE USE OF dateTime() INSTEAD
Returns the current date. For formatting, review the Configuration section.
Parameter list
The today() function accepts a couple of parameters to add or subtract values from todays date.
Given the current date is 24-05-2018.
| Symbol | Description | Example | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| y | add/subtract # years | today(+1y) | 24-05-2019 |
| m | add/subtract # months | today(+1m) | 24-06-2018 |
| w | add/subtract # weeks | today(+1w) | 31-05-2018 |
| d | add/subtract # days | today(+1d) | 25-05-2018 |
You can also change the way JOSF parses the date to other formats. This requires to set two parameters, the format and the addintion/subtraction, which can also be 0.
| Format | Result |
|---|---|
| ${today(YYYY-MM-dd, 0)} | 2018-05-24 |
| ${today(YY.dd.MM, 0)} | 18.24.05 |
| ${today(YYYY-MM-dd, +1y)} | 2019-05-24 |
| ${today(YY.dd.MM, -1y)} | 17.24.05 |
A more complex, but valid use case would be: today(+1w-2d) wich translates to today plus 1 week, minus 2 days. Off course today(+5d) would also work just fine. Even today(+1y-40d+12w) would return a valid date.
now() - DEPRECATED
WARNING: THIS FUNCTION IS DEPCRECATED SINCE VERSION 2.10 AND MAY BE REMOVED IN FUTURE RELEASES. PLEASE MAKE USE OF dateTime() INSTEAD
Returns the current time. For formatting, review the Configuration section.
Parameter list
The now() function accepts a couple of parameters to add or subtract values from this moment in time.
Given the current time is 15:05:38.
| Symbol | Description | Example | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| h | add/subtract # hours | now(+1h) | 16:05:38 |
| m | add/subtract # minutes | now(+23m) | 16:28:38 |
| s | add/subtract # secons | now(+12s) | 16:05:50 |
A more complex, but valid use case would be: now(+2h-50s) wich translates to now plus 2 hours, minus 50 seconds.
Even now(+3h-40m+12s) would return a valid time.
Example
Remember to wrap functions into the ${} format!
| Action name | Object | Data | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| type | id=lst-ib | ${today()} | Todays date, formatted as configured |
| type | id=lst-ib | ${now()} | Current time, formatted as configured |
| verifyText | id=lst-ib | ${today(+2d)} | verifies wheter the text is equal to the day after tomorrow |
Configuration
The format of the date and time can be adjusted by editing the config.json file, located in C:\Program Files\JOSF\src\main\conf\config.json. In this file, (if not already present) two configuration properties can be added; FormatDate & FormatTime like so:
"FormatTime" : "kk:mm:ss",
"FormatDate" : "dd-MM-yyyy"
Formatting date & time
Formatting date and time uses a specific pattern. In the example above, the FormatDate dd-MM-yyyy formats a date as 25-10-2018. For a month-day-year format, we can use MM-dd-yyyy. If we'd want to use slashes (/), instead of dashes(-), we can set a format as dd/MM/yyyy.
For time, the same rules apply. The above example gives us a time (24 hours) format of hour:minute:second, or 22:01:20.
All supported formatting patterns can be reviewed in this table.
| Symbol | Meaning | Presentation | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | era | text | AD; Anno Domini; A |
| u | year | year | 2004; 04 |
| y | year-of-era | year | 2004; 04 |
| D | day-of-year | number | 189 |
| M/L | month-of-year | number/text | 7; 07; Jul; July; J |
| d | day-of-month | number | 10 |
| Q/q | quarter-of-year | number/text | 3; 03; Q3; 3rd quarter |
| Y | week-based-year | year | 1996; 96 |
| w | week-of-week-based-year | number | 27 |
| W | week-of-month | number | 4 |
| E | day-of-week | text | Tue; Tuesday; T |
| e/c | localized day-of-week | number/text | 2; 02; Tue; Tuesday; T |
| F | week-of-month | number | 3 |
| a | am-pm-of-day | text | PM |
| h | clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-12) | number | 12 |
| K | hour-of-am-pm (0-11) | number | 0 |
| k | clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-24) | number | 0 |
| H | hour-of-day (0-23) | number | 0 |
| m | minute-of-hour | number | 30 |
| s | second-of-minute | number | 55 |
| S | fraction-of-second | fraction | 978 |
| A | milli-of-day | number | 1234 |
| n | nano-of-second | number | 987654321 |
| N | nano-of-day | number | 1234000000 |
| V | time-zone ID | zone-id | America/Los_Angeles; Z; -08:30 |
| z | time-zone name | zone-name | Pacific Standard Time; PST |
| O | localized zone-offset | offset-O | GMT+8; GMT+08:00; UTC-08:00; |
| X | zone-offset 'Z' for zero | offset-X | Z; -08; -0830; -08:30; -083015; -08:30:15; |
| x | zone-offset | offset-x | +0000; -08; -0830; -08:30; -083015; -08:30:15; |
| Z | zone-offset | offset-Z | +0000; -0800; -08:00; |
| p | pad next | pad modifier | 1 |
| ' | escape for text | delimiter | |
| '' | single quote | literal | ' |
| [ | optional section start | ||
| ] | optional section end | ||
| # | reserved for future use | ||
| { | reserved for future use | ||
| } | reserved for future use |
For more information about formatting, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/format/DateTimeFormatter.html