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Brent
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 Posted: Jul 23rd, 2014, 12:43am Post subject: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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I recently had the thought that VF could use a date literal and (maybe) a Date type. A date literal would add consistency by allowing the compiler to check for correctness instead of relying on opaque string literals, as LB does.
Visual Basic also has a date literal, but I'm sure that many people find it odd because it insists on using the US-centric mm/dd/yyyy format for dates and assumes a 12-hour time format. For example, the current date and time here is #7/22/2014 8:43 PM#.
The format I propose for VF would be a bit more internationalized. The same value from above would be represented as @2014-7-22:20:43:00.
The date parts could also be separated by slashes (@2014/7/22) or dots (@2014.7.22). The time part can be left off a date and defaults to 00:00:00.0. Or the literal can leave the date part off and just represent a time value; the date part defaulting to 0001-01-01 (or whatever is appropriate).
A Date type would almost certainly be represented with a 64-bit integer, given the looming Y2038 problem. But then I have to consider how much resolution to have in the time. VB's Date type uses 64 bits with a 100 nanosecond resolution and a range between #1/1/0001# and #12/31/9999#. I suppose that would be alright.
Do you have any comments or questions?
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STPendl
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Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 161
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Jul 26th, 2014, 8:26am Post subject: Re: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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I like the approach of using the sortable date format, which makes it much easier to understand the parts of it.
How about using a semicolon to separate the date from the time?
This would make it easier to parse the string and split it up into date and time.
In general time resolution of milliseconds should be sufficient, so 100 nanoseconds would be enough.
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Stefan
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Brent
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| Posted: Jul 26th, 2014, 10:29pm Post subject: Re: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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| STPendl wrote: | How about using a semicolon to separate the date from the time?
This would make it easier to parse the string and split it up into date and time. |
I'm not sure about people's ability to distinguish a semicolon from a colon in unspaced text. I'd guess that many people would see colons instead, and get syntax errors.
My reason for using a colon is because the Apache Web server's logs use a date/time format like 26/Jul/2014:12:34:56. Of course that isn't exactly the same format as I suggested and might confuse people as well.
I wonder how you all think about a format like
@2014-07-26@12:34:56
?
It sounds pretty natural if you read it out loud in English IMO.
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Brent
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Joined: 01 Jul 2005
Posts: 800
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| Posted: Jul 26th, 2014, 11:12pm Post subject: Re: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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Here's an example that uses a couple Dates in a struct.
| Code: | Struct person
name As String
birth As Date
death As Date
End Struct
Dim US_presidents() As person = { _
{ "George Washington", @1732-02-22, @1799-12-14 }, _
{ "Abraham Lincoln", @1809-02-12, @1865-04-15 }, _
{ "Theodore Roosevelt", @1858-10-27, @1919-01-06 } _
}
Dim randDate As Date = RandomDate()
For Each prez In US_presidents()
If prez.birth <= randDate <= prez.death Tol @12:00:00
#out "President " & prez.name & " was alive in " & randDate & "."
End If
End For
End |
Note that when a Date is converted into a string, it is automatically formatted for the user's locale.
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STPendl
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Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 161
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Aug 2nd, 2014, 8:55am Post subject: Re: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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Just tried to run the example, but failed to get it run correctly with the latest VF.exe
May be the debug output could contain the version number of the VF.exe to make sure the latest version is used for testing.
| Code: |
require IO #out
Struct person
name As String
birth As Date
death As Date
End Struct
Dim US_presidents() As person = { _
{ "George Washington", @1732-02-22, @1799-12-14 }, _
{ "Abraham Lincoln", @1809-02-12, @1865-04-15 }, _
{ "Theodore Roosevelt", @1858-10-27, @1919-01-06 } _
}
Dim randDate As Date = RandomDate()
For Each prez In US_presidents()
If prez.birth <= randDate <= prez.death Tol @12:00:00
#out "President " & prez.name & " was alive in " & randDate & "."
End If
End For
End
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| Quote: |
C:\Users\Stefan\Documents\Prog\ViviFire>VF.exe -v2 "Date Sample.txt"
138:require
24:IO
26:#out
1:?-- line 3 col 1: invalid UserModule
141:Struct
24:person
1:?
24:name
89:As
122:String
1:?
24:birth
89:As
132:Date
1:?
24:death
89:As
132:Date
1:?
48:End Struct
1:?-- line 8 col 1: EOF expected
-- 2 errors
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It seems that struct is not a recognized keyword.
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Stefan
Any code I post can be freely used, just give credit. |
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Brent
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Joined: 01 Jul 2005
Posts: 800
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| Posted: Aug 2nd, 2014, 4:37pm Post subject: Re: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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Hi Stefan,
The root of the problem is that the code I posted is unlabeled pseudocode.
So far, STRUCTs (and several other declarations) are legal only within LIBRARY modules. However, after giving it some thought, I can see that this was a rather arbritrary decision on my part. Most people would be annoyed to have to create a new source file just to declare a tiny STRUCT. So, expect to see this corrected in the next release.
EDIT
So, now I go look at the grammar and I see that STRUCTs are allowed inside user modules, but only after the END statement. If you simply move the STRUCT in the code to the end, it should parse with no errors.
Would you prefer the ability to place STRUCTs wherever you want? Or at least wherever you want at the module level?
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STPendl
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Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 161
Location: Austria
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| Posted: Aug 3rd, 2014, 9:21am Post subject: Re: Experiment - Date literals and data type |
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The following is now parsed without error.
| Code: |
require IO #out
Dim US_presidents() As person = { _
{ "George Washington", @1732-02-22, @1799-12-14 }, _
{ "Abraham Lincoln", @1809-02-12, @1865-04-15 }, _
{ "Theodore Roosevelt", @1858-10-27, @1919-01-06 } _
}
Dim randDate As Date = RandomDate()
For Each prez In US_presidents()
If prez.birth <= randDate <= prez.death Tol @12:00:00
#out "President " & prez.name & " was alive in " & randDate & "."
End If
End For
End
Struct person
name As String
birth As Date
death As Date
End Struct
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I would appreciate being able to place the declaration wherever I want in the module.
I usually prefer to place variable declarations at the beginning of the code for global variables and at the beginning of a procedure for local variables.
It is strange to have a variable or custom type used before its declaration.
Having procedures declared after the main code looks familiar, even so many languages force declaration of procedures before their use too.
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Stefan
Any code I post can be freely used, just give credit. |
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